High-scoring Lakeside breaks through, captures first state title since 1997 in convincing fashion

NAMPA — A season that began with tears ended with cheers.

In their first trip to state since 2015, the Lakeside Knights put on an entertaining show during their three-game, record-setting stay in the Treasure Valley.

Lakeside capped an undefeated season by winning its first state title since 1997 on Saturday morning, cruising past the Cascade Ramblers 74-57 in the state 1A Division II high school boys basketball championship game at the Ford Idaho Center.

“It means a lot,” said guard Talon Twoteeth, the lone senior starter on the team. “We’ve been working hard the last three years, and this year, it finally clicked.”

Lakeside (24-0) averaged 75.0 points per game heading into the postseason, and blitzed the opposition pretty much all season — only two of the Knights’ wins came by single digits.

In winning its three tournament games by an average of 20.0 points, Lakeside set 1A Division II tournament records for most points in a tournament (245) and average points (81.7). Lakeside broke the single-game scoring record in the division with 95 in the first round — though that record lasted just one day, when Mackay scored 96 in a consolation round game.

“It was an emotional season,” said Lakeside coach James Twoteeth, who started on the Knights’ state title team in 1997. “It was surreal. 24-0, that’s what’s crazy; I don’t know how to explain that. I still think someone’s going to pinch me and I’m going to wake up. It seems like a dream; it really does.”

Twoteeth, father of Talon, said this year’s squad followed a similar path to his ’97 squad.

“It’s kinda deja vu for me,” said Twoteeth, in his third year as Lakeside coach. “They followed the same trajectory. Back when I was in school there was like 8 to 10 of us, and I see the same thing here. On the third year, they kinda clicked — same with us.”

Junior Kenyon Spotted Horse had 22 points and eight rebounds for Lakeside. Twoteeth and junior Jayson “JJ” Hall added 12 points each, and Darren “Day Day” Higgins had 12 points and 12 rebounds.

“We’ve been talking about this every since I was little, how he’s going to coach us to a championship,” Talon said of his father. “It was nice to play for him.”

“To do it with my son, that’s awesome,” James Twoteeth said. “Every parent wants that for your son, and to do it his senior year, that’s awesome.”

Four of Lakeside’s starters are three-year starters. The Knights were one game from state each of the last two years, but couldn’t knock off Genesis Prep. Until this year.

As you might expect from a first title game in a cavernous arena, Lakeside started slow. The Knights missed 11 of their first 12 shots before settling down, amping up the pressure, and running up a big lead.

Spotted Horse used a screen from Higgins to hit a 3-pointer from the top of the circle at the end of the first quarter, capping a 10-2 run for a 14-7 lead.

A 10-0 run upped the lead to 32-16 late in the second quarter, and freshman Vander Brown’s floater just before the buzzer sent Lakeside into the locker room up 35-20.

The 6-foot-8 Higgins, the MVP of the North Star League, had a double-double by halftime — 10 points and 10 boards. But he also had three fouls, and began the third quarter on the bench.

And sat there the whole quarter.

And watched the Knights expand their lead, outscoring the Ramblers 25-14 in the quarter.

Lakeside scored the first two baskets of the third quarter. Midway through the quarter, Spotted Horse scored on a cutback, then scored again seconds later following a steal by the spunky Brown.

Even when Cascade (20-5) scored, Lakeside answered seconds later, in this case Brown with the and-one late in the quarter.

Lakeside led by as much as 28 points late in the third quarter. Cascade pulled to within 16 midway through the fourth quarter, junior reserve guard Jasper Abuan answered with a 3-pointer for the Knights, who finished 34 of 67 (50.7%) from the floor.

“We’re really deep,” James Twoteeth said. “All those guys can step up, when we’re in foul trouble or somebody’s injured. Vander Brown’s a freshman, but he doesn’t play like one. … With my two subs that I put in (Brown and Abuan), I can go quicker than I can with my starting lineup. That’s the plan when I put those two in. They can kind of fly around, and get some steals.”

Brown finished with nine points, five rebounds and five assists off the bench for Lakeside, which (along with Genesis Prep) moves up to 1A Division I next year, joining Lakeside in a new league.

After the game, with the mic in his hand, James Twoteeth choked up when he spoke of this team, and this season. Tyler Ambro, a sophomore in the Lakeside program, took his life some three weeks before preseason practice.

“He was a really tough player,” Twoteeth said of Ambro. “I didn’t know what to think; I didn’t know if they would show up. They showed up first day, said we’re going to do it for him.”

“With Tyler’s death, it set us back a little bit, but it just encouraged us more. It gave us more of a reason to win,” Higgins said. “My parents and Tyler’s parents convinced me to play. I’m glad I did.”

As Twoteeth spoke to the crowd, the Knight players sat on the bench, Hall holding a sign with Ambro’s picture that read, “In Our Hearts Forever.”

“Just letting everyone know that he’s with us,” Hall said.

Senior Cody Moosman led Cascade with 19 points, and junior guard Blake Thurston, who had 36 points in the Ramblers’ semifinal win over Carey, added 13. Senior Michael Onaindia, averaging 20.5 points and 13 rebounds after two tournament games, had five points and 11 boards on Saturday.

“We came into it knowing they were going to want to run on us, and we needed to be able to stop that, and we weren’t able to get that part of the job done,” said first-year Cascade coach Amos Lee, who said one point of emphasis was to get back on defense, and make Lakeside run offense. “We didn’t respond to the press very well. It definitely made us run our energy in the wrong direction.”

Lakeside 14 21 25 14 — 74

Cascade 7 13 14 23 — 57

LAKESIDE — Brown 9, Abuan 3, Higgins 12, White 2, Tonasket 0, Hall 12, Twoteeth 12, Spotted Horse 22, Rivera 0, Matt 2, Arroyo 0, Fulton 0. Totals 34-67 3-5 74.

CASCADE — Kitzel 0, Thurston 16, Boyd 3, Dallenbach 0, Bannon 0, Wilkins 0, Onaindia 5, Jensen 2, Moosman 19, Duetten 12. Totals 21-56 11-22 57.