COEUR d'ALENE - The road to the 5A Region 1 tournament may have gotten a lot shorter for the Coeur d'Alene Viking girls basketball team.

Junior Kendalyn Brainard scored a game-high 17 points as the Vikings, ranked No. 2 in 5A, avenged an earlier loss to the top-ranked Lewiston Bengals with a 53-31 win on Tuesday night in an Inland Empire League game at Elmer Jordan Court.

With the win, Coeur d'Alene (12-2) holds a 2-1 league record, with its lone loss at Lewiston on Nov. 29.

Lewiston (9-2, 1-1) has four games remaining - two each with Post Falls and Lake City. The Vikings play Lake City twice - including Friday at Coeur d'Alene in the Fight for the Fish game - and host Post Falls on Jan. 13.

The winner of the 5A IEL enjoys home-court advantage throughout the regional tournament. Lewiston was the top seed at regionals the last two seasons.

Coeur d'Alene jumped out to a 12-2 lead after the first quarter, but allowed Lewiston to crawl back into the game after being outscored 15-8 in the second quarter to make it a 20-17 Viking lead at halftime.

“I really don’t know what happened in the second quarter,” Poffenroth said. “But our kids worked really hard on defense. We frustrated them a little bit and did what we had to do to get a win tonight.”

Coeur d’Alene outscored Lewiston 23-8 in the third quarter to put the game away.

Brainard held Lewiston post Chelsea Waters, who has signed with Gonzaga, to 10 points.

“This was a very big win for us tonight,” Brainard said. “We’ve always known we’re right there with them. As many times as we’ve played them, everything just went well tonight. This is a big win for us, but we’ve got to take care of our other conference games.”

“I thought she played great on her tonight,” said Lewiston coach Pat Teichmer of Brainard’s defense on Waters. “This was the best I’ve seen her play.”

Coeur d’Alene held Lewiston guard Karlee Wilson to four points after she scored 21 in the previous matchup, a 44-39 Bengals win at Booth Hall.

“We knew we had to keep an eye on Wilson with the ball,” Poffenroth said. “After the last game we made it a point instead of reaching when she drives to the basket to get a body over to change her shot.”

Sydney Williams scored 14 points for Coeur d’Alene.

“This was a pretty intense game,” Williams said. “We knew this was our night to get them. We practiced all week to defend their best players and we shut them down tonight. Our main focus is on the Fish game now. We’re just determined to beat our main competition, but to get over the Lewiston speed bump was a good feeling.”

Tisha Phillips also had 10 points for Lewiston.

“I thought they deserved to win,” Teichmer said. “We came out and shot the ball poorly.”

Lewiston hosts Moscow on Thursday before traveling to Post Falls on Saturday for another 5A IEL game.

“Where we’re at, we can’t worry about traveling back up here,” Teichmer said. “Every game we play in the league is two hours away. We should be a good road team, but we just weren’t tonight.”

Lewiston 2 15 8 6 — 31

Coeur d’Alene 12 8 23 10 — 53

LEWISTON — K. Wilson 4, L. Wilson 0, Schlader 5, Bernatz 0, Hansen 0, Hobart 2, Wells 0, Phillips 10, Hastings 0, Waters 10.

COEUR d’ALENE — S. Parker 0, Sumner 0, Orlandi 2, C. Williams 0, K. Parker 5, Tackett 0, Legel 15, Higbie 0, Brainard 17, S. Williams 14.