6A REGION 1 BOYS BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: Lake City shoots past Post Falls in Game 1
By MARK NELKE
Sports editor
COEUR d’ALENE — Round 1 of a new format — on a weekend afternoon, but attracting some 1,500 fans — went to the home squad.
Senior Reese Strawn and sophomore Jordan Carlson scored 20 points each as the top-seeded Lake City Timberwolves beat the second-seeded Post Falls Trojans 69-57 in Game 1 of a best-of-3 series for the 6A District 1 boys basketball title Saturday afternoon at Lake City.
Game 2 is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Post Falls. Game 3, if necessary, is Thursday at Lake City.
The winner advances to state March 6-8 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa. The loser can make it to state by winning a play-in game next Saturday at Grangeville.
"Happy for our guys; they came out focused,” Lake City coach James Anderson said. “Post Falls does such a good job of getting into you and taking away your space, and we knew it was going to be a war the whole series, and we just wanted to win certain battles ... we obviously shot the ball well tonight; that always helps. We’re happy to get one down, but this is far from over.”
Strawn hit six 3-pointers for Lake City (18-4). Carlson scored seven of his points in the second quarter as the T-Wolves outscored the Trojans 14-8 in the quarter to lead 35-27.
Cason Miller added 11 points for Lake City, including a running 3 at the halftime buzzer.
Senior Trenton McLean scored 12 points, sophomore Cashton Bodman 10 for Post Falls (15-8), which beat third seed Coeur d’Alene in a loser-out game Wednesday.
"I was impressed with Lake City’s efficiency on the offensive end,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “They did a really good job of creating and taking shots that they wanted. Defensively they did a good job of coming and doubling our posts ... we had faced it before, but their rotations out of that double, I was impressed with that.
Lake City opened up a 53-35 led when Josh Watson fed Jackson Bowman for a layup with 2 minutes left in the third quarter.
Post Falls pulled to within 64-55 on a cut and score by Jace Ostlund with 2 minutes left.
But Watson’s turnaround jumper bounced on the rim a few times before falling in for what was basically the clinching hoop for Lake City.
As for Round 2 on Tuesday ...
“I don’t know if we can sustain our shooting on Tuesday; that’s always the ‘X’ factor,” Anderson said. “We have to be prepared to win a game when we don’t shoot as well, and be a little bit better defensively through the fourth quarter. I thought we lapsed defensively in the fourth quarter.”
“Lake City’s so talented offensively, we really have to do a good job of not letting them have wide-open layups,” McLean said. “They’re really good, and then they break us down and we make some mental mistakes, and give up open layups ... against a team like Lake City, you can’t shoot yourself in the foot, giving up wide-open layup after wide-open layup.”
Post Falls 19 8 13 17 — 57
Lake City 21 14 20 14 — 69
POST FALLS — Naylor 2, J. Ostlund 6, McLean 12, Lysne 9, Cameron 9, Bodman 10, Carver 3, Blake 6, McKeown 0.
LAKE CITY — Winey 0, Strawn 20, Miller 11, Watson 9, Bowman 7, Pearson 2, Carlson 20.