Lake City girls avenge OT loss to Sandpoint
MARK NELKE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 1 month 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. | December 13, 2014 8:00 PM
COEUR d'ALENE - Coming into Friday night, Sandpoint was the only girls basketball team to beat Lake City this season.
The Timberwolves, ranked No. 5 in 5A remembered that overtime loss from three weeks ago, beating the Bulldogs, ranked second in 4A, 49-32 in nonleague play Friday night.
"After that last game, I thought they outworked us," Lake City coach Bryan Kelly said. "We really took that to heart, and we came out and played hard."
Whitney Meier hit three 3-pointers and led Lake City (6-1) with 11 points. Clarissa Smith added 10 points.
Olivia Maryon added eight points, but her biggest contribution was holding Sandpoint's high-scoring junior, Madi Schoening, to 12 points on 5-of-14 shooting. Maryon also had four steals and four assists.
"Schoening's an unreal player, and we tried to take her out as much as we can," Kelly said. "Olivia Maryon did an amazing job on her tonight."
Lake City led by as much as nine points in the first half. Sandpoint (5-2) came back and took a 24-23 lead early in the third quarter on a basket by Lily Martin. But Natalie Wheelock's three-point play put Lake City back ahead, and the T-Wolves started to pull away from there.
Lake City made three 3s in the final 5 1/2 minutes of the third quarter, and Meier's 3 to open the fourth expanded the lead to 42-28. The T-Wolves finished with five 3s.
"We kept it close and we got ahead, and I don't think we matched their intensity in that last quarter," said Sandpoint coach Duane Ward, a longtime Bulldog coach in his first season back coaching the varsity girls. "We got a little tentative, and we quit attacking."
Under Ward, Sandpoint is playing strictly a zone defense - which kept the Bulldogs close until Lake City, which also enjoyed a height advantage, got hot from behind the arc.
"They hadn't proved to us that they could do that," Ward said. "We were worried about the inside."
"I thought we did a good job with our high/low, getting our posts some good looks," Kelly said. "Whitney Meier's been shooting the lights out, averaging about 18 points a game, and four 3-pointers. If teams go zone, that's kind of nice to have."
Keara Simpson had eight points and eight rebounds for Lake City, which plays host to Bonners Ferry on Monday.
Sandpoint 6 14 8 4 - 32
Lake City 13 10 16 10 - 49
SANDPOINT - Williams 2, Schoening 12, Dumars 0, Converse 2, Robertson 0, Albertson 0, Ward 0, Martin 4, Couch 7, Kirscher 5, Bluemer 0.
LAKE CITY - Eborall 2, Dvorak 2, Carlson 0, Wheelock 2, Smith 10, O. Maryon 8, Rewers 6, Meier 11, Simpson 8.
CSI sophomore Fredrick Edmond is second in the conference in scoring at 20.8 points per game, followed by Jamaal Robateau (16.8), Jordan King (15.6) and Djuan Piper (15.3) of NIC. Edmond, who is also third in rebounding (7.5), has signed with Western Kentucky.
WOMEN: Sophomore Kara Staggs is second in the conference in scoring with 15.9 points per game for NIC (7-2), which has won three straight games.
Holly Blades is third in scoring with 15 per game and Samantha Lubcke leads the conference with 7.8 rebounds per game for 20th-ranked CSI (8-4), which is 7-1 at home this season. The Golden Eagles' only loss was against Lethbridge 97-96 in a game that saw former Coeur d'Alene High and NIC standout Deanna Dotts finish with 14 points, 11 rebounds and three steals for the Pronghorns.
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“I’ve been very impressed by Zach’s natural ability to rush the passer,” Eck said. “And he’s worked hard on his body, he’s up to about 222 pounds now, and I really think he can be a difference maker for us. He’s still doing some things with the linebackers, but I think his speed can give some offensive linemen problems (as an edge rusher).”
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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.”