Worth shouting about
MARK NELKE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 11 months AGO
Mark Nelke covers high school and North Idaho College sports, University of Idaho football and other local/regional sports as a writer, photographer, paginator and editor at the Coeur d’Alene Press. He has been at The Press since 1998 and sports editor since 2002. Before that, Mark was the one-man sports staff for 16 years at the Bonner County Daily Bee in Sandpoint. Earlier, he was sports editor for student newspapers at Spokane Falls Community College and Eastern Washington University. Mark enjoys the NCAA men's basketball tournament and wiener dogs — and not necessarily in that order. | February 21, 2013 8:00 PM
RATHDRUM — The hugs began with 48.8 seconds left, with the outcome finally decided and the subs coming in to finish up.
Moments later, the Timberlake High boys basketball team celebrated history — the Tigers’ first trip to state since the school opened in the fall of 1998.
Senior point guard Johnny Hayden scored 16 of his game-high 22 points in the third quarter as Timberlake defeated Priest River 60-46 in the championship game of the 3A District 1 tournament Wednesday night at Lakeland High.
“It means everything,” said Hayden, a starter since midway through his freshman season. “Making history. Got a great team. It’s a great season. Overwhelming joy for all the hard work put in.”
Timberlake (18-3) advances to state Feb. 28-March 2 at Meridian High. The Tigers open Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. PST vs. District 3 champion Fruitland.
Priest River (11-10) will play Kellogg (13-9) today at 5:30 at Lakeland for second place, and a berth in a state play-in game Saturday at 2 p.m. PST in McCall vs. District 4 runner-up Buhl (13-10).
Earlier Wednesday, Kellogg eliminated Bonners Ferry (5-16) with a 55-53 victory.
Timberlake 60, Priest River 46: Keegan Scott added 11 points, seven rebounds and three steals for Timberlake, which took the lead late in the first half and never looked back.
“This is something new for Timberlake,” second-year Timberlake coach Tony Hanna said. “New and exciting. We knew we could do it, but pushing past some of the ghosts from the past have been a challenge for us these last couple of years. Last year was big for us, because we learned how to win. We came up short in the district tournament, but we learned how to win. And this year, we learned how to play with the lead a little bit, and clinched those ones that we should finish at the end. I’m just real proud of the guys; they stepped up, they had a lot of confidence. We knew Priest River was going to fight to the end, but for the most part our guys kept their composure and I’m really proud about that.”
Timberlake led 26-21 heading into the third quarter when the 5-foot-10 Hayden went off. He hit four 3-pointers in the third quarter, as well as a driving bank shot and a pullup jumper, helping the Tigers extend their lead to 48-34 after three quarters.
“He’s a phenomenal basketball player,” Hanna said. “I’ve actually asked him to give up a little bit of his scoring this year to do some more things for his team, as the point guard is the leader on this team. And tonight, he was feeling it, and when a guy’s feeling it, you have to let him go. The nice part is when you don’t have to coach a whole lot, and when you’ve got a kid playing like that, you really don’t have to coach a whole lot.”
Timberlake led by as many as 18 points in the second half. Priest River came within nine with 2:11 left, then the Tigers held off the Spartans.
Trevor Masterson added seven points, five rebounds and three blocked shots for Timberlake.
Dalton Sommer led Priest River with 17 points, and Jimmy Koch added 10.
Priest River 10 11 13 12 — 46
Timberlake 14 12 22 12 — 60
PRIEST RIVER — Akre 6, Riley 4, Sommer 17, Reynolds 5, Stelow 2, Nunley 0, Koch 10, Low 0, Roland 2.
TIMBERLAKE — Rice 0, Cramer 8, McNamara 5, Austin 0, Masterson 7, Hayden 22, Foster 0, Blayne 0, Scott 11, Johnson 0, Allen 2, Thompson 5, Cronnelly 0.
Kellogg 55, Bonners Ferry 53: Garret Wendt scored 28 points to lead the Wildcats past the Badgers in a loser-out game.
Cody Seaton made two free throws with 30 seconds remaining to give Kellogg a 55-52 lead. Bonners Ferry missed the first of two free throws with 2.8 seconds remaining, but made the second shot, allowing Kellogg to inbound the ball deep to run out the clock.
Jesse Lambert added 10 points for Kellogg.
Evan Moe scored 14 points for Bonners Ferry.
Bonners Ferry 9 16 14 14 — 53
Kellogg 13 16 9 17 — 55
BONNERS FERRY — Price 4, Bennett 0, Skeen 4, Ky. Rice 10, Pluid 6, Woods 5, Stone 0, Evans 5, Moe 14, Farrens 5, Ko. Rice 0.
KELLOGG — Colburn 0, Seaton 2, Bircher 2, Lambert 10, Wendt 28, deYoung 4, Gust 0, Sauer 7, Waechter 2.
ALL INTERMOUNTAIN LEAGUE TEAM
MVP — Garret Wendt, Kellogg.
Coach of the Year — Tony Hanna, Timberlake.
TIMBERLAKE — Johnny Hayden, Trevor Masterson, Keegan Scott, Jon Thompson. PRIEST RIVER — Dalton Sommer, Cameron Riley. KELLOGG — Jesse Lambert. BONNERS FERRY — Cameron Woods, Evan Moe.
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“The whole process has been completely amazing,” said Nathan Williams, now in his fourth season as the Badgers boys basketball coach. “And the parents … it’s an hour and a half to Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, when we’d play an AAU game, and an hour and a half back, and there were so many times there was 6, 8 inches of snow. And we’ve got a game at 8 a.m. They’d always schedule us at 8 a.m., coming from Bonners. So we’re waking up at 5 … it was crazy. But the commitment from the parents and the kids has been amazing.”