Dalton Thompson is a senior leader and the second-leading scorer on the Post Falls High boys basketball team, but he took just six shots and scored just two points in the Trojans' most important game of the season to date last week.

And that was just the way Post Falls coach Mike McLean envisioned it.

"Obviously we've got a lot of guys that can play," McLean said last Tuesday, after Post Falls beat Lake City 69-56 in the 5A Region 1 championship game. "We can go 11 deep. I feel confident with 11 guys deep. And what's special about this team is, everyone very much accepts their role."

In that game, "I really challenged Dalton," McLean said. "Not necessarily to not be looking for his shot, but I really want him to guard Joe (Pasquale, Lake City's top outside shooter), and not let him get off, because he's kind of their sparkplug lately. And I really challenged Jack Millsap, just make what (Timberwolf post Nick) Hancock gets really, really difficult. So maybe those guys didn't score as much, but they did things that we have to do to allow this."

"This" is a 22-1 record, a No. 1 ranking in the final state 5A media poll, and the likely role as favorite for the state 5A tournament, which runs Thursday through Saturday at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

"These guys have been working hard all year, all summer," McLean said. "You don't play at the level we played at (in the regional title game) in one season. This has been a culmination to get there.

"And I think we're just starting to peak. I actually think we can still play better. ... We've got things to work on."

Coming into the season, only three players had previous varsity experience - Thompson (11.2 points, 2.1 assists per game), junior guard Max McCullough (14.8 points, 46 percent from 3-point range) and senior guard Luke Anderson.

The other starters are senior post Jake Blakney (8 points, 6 rebounds, 61 percent field-goal percentage), who was one of five players brought up from the junior varsity last year for last year's state tournament, and senior post Jack Millsap, a transfer from Lakeland.

Coming off the bench is junior guard Blake McLean, the coach's son, sophomore guard Wyatt Millsap, junior guard Zach Hillman, senior guard Ryan English, freshman guard Jake Pfennigs and senior guard Brenden Flaa.

"We go to our bench and we get FASTER," Mike McLean said. "I'm not saying we're necessarily better going to the bench - they're not the shooters our main guys are - but we get faster.

The other part that makes us better with our depth is that, in practice, we can really work on things. When we split up, we make it even, and that really helps us with our intensity. We have some pretty spirited practices, let's just say. We kind of foster that as a program ... some of the best basketball I've seen all year has actually been in practice."

McLean said he's watched McCullough play since the first or second grade - he's the same age as the coach's son. Blake McLean and Hillman have played together since second grade. Wyatt Millsap played with the Post Falls kids in AAU ball.

"So I knew we were coming," McLean said. "Last year, I think our JV team would have placed at the 4A level (at state). But with loyalty to the guys before, I'm not going to pull out guys that have got us through the wars to get there. You've got to earn your time, and respect the kids we've got."

After placing second at state in 2012 - Post Falls' second trip to the titlte game in three years - the Trojans went two and out each of the last two years. Shooting was an issue, as Post Falls shot 32.4 percent in those four games.

This year's team is averaging just over 70 points per game.

"This team, we can score and defend, and the last couple of years we've gotten to state by playing defense and trying to find a way offensively," McLean said. "This team, we can play just as good a defense, but we can find ways to score in bunches.

"In the last couple of years we've had really good high school athletes that were probably football-first kids. Now we've got a bunch of kids that would call themselves basketball-first kids."

At first glance earlier this season, Post Falls' schedule looked like a typo - six games over six days over the Christmas holidays?

But it was done by design - Post Falls played three games in three days at a tournament at North Idaho College, finishing on New Year's Eve. Then, right after the game the Trojans hopped a bus for Boise, where they played three games in three days in another tourney at CenturyLink Arena.

Post Falls' only loss came to Wilson of Tacoma in the finals of that NIC tourney. Wilson finished 20-5, losing in the regional round of the Washington state 3A tournament.

Post Falls has won 13 straight games since then.

"Does this record surprise me? I didn't think we'd lose just one game," McLean said. "I tried to go out of my way to make our schedule as difficult and ridiculous as we can, to challenge our guys. And not so much to challenge them physically, but I really wanted to challenge them emotionally and psychologically - can you bring it every single night. They've responded to every challenge."

And their final challenge is this week.