State wrap-up

As Potlatch High coach Ryan Ball put it, “As soon as you come down here, it’s kind of a toss-up.”

In other words, a few local boys’ basketball teams met unexpected fates last week at the state tournament.

Among the most compelling story lines were the Class 4A Moscow Bears, whose middling start to the season set the stage for a dazzling streak down the stretch, and a No. 2 finish. Moscow was not ranked all year in the media or coaches’ polls.

“We had a lot of growing up to do,” fifth-year Moscow coach Josh Uhrig said after his team finished runner-up to Preston with a 59-43 loss. Uhrig’s squad went from 5-8 midway through the season to 17-9 entering the championship. “We had a mix of freshmen and seniors, and they just hadn’t played a lot together. Once they started trusting each other, believing in what each other could do, knowing everybody’s gonna be in the right spots, it turned around.

“Once that turned around, it was a fun run we went on.”

Moscow had the components to build a competitor. Benny Kitchel, a 6-foot-4 junior guard who could play anywhere, was starring. He averaged 14 points per night at State. Senior 6-6 post Ben Postell helped instruct 6-7 freshman Blake Buchanan, and the two became one of the classification’s most formidable duos down low. Buchanan tallied 12 points per game at the tournament.

Senior guard Brayden Decker was a perimeter threat and vocal leader, and point guard Jamari Simpson emerged as a playmaker throughout the year.

“We rebounded the ball well, we’ve got bigs,” Uhrig said, “and any night, Benny or Brayden were shooting the ball well, and Barrett Abendroth started shooting well for us. We were well-rounded, kids bought into our defensive game plan … and they’d go out and execute.”

Moscow, uneasy early, dropped two games to Clarkston, was stunned at Potlatch, handled by Eastmont of Wenatchee, and blown out by University of Spokane and Lewiston. Uhrig sensed his team beginning to click on Jan. 6, during a three-point loss at home to the Bengals.

“It was a team that’d whipped up on us,” he said. “We had the ball with a chance to win, down one, had to foul and we lose by three. At that moment, I’m like, ‘We got the pieces to do what we need to do.’

“Once we started believing it, that was the turning point, and it was in a loss.”

Two games later, “we just started rolling,” utilizing a long, resilient defense that often held opponents’ scoring in the 40s.

The Bears beat Pullman for the first time in a decade — one of eight straight wins before losing to Lakeland of Rathdrum once in a best-of-three district tournament final, during which key senior reserve Reef Diego went down with an injury that kept him sidelined at the tournament.

“My heart hurts for that kid; he was a big part of what we were trying to do,” Uhrig said.

The Bears rolled in the second half to open State with an upset of Minico of Rupert, then — after leading by 24 midway through the game — squeezed past Kuna and into their first final since 2013, and third since 2010. But alas, they finished with their third runner-up trophy of the past decade, running into an outrageously solid Preston team that’s won four of the last five titles.

Unranked Moscow, despite making the tournament four straight years, was certainly not expected by many to get this far — further than it’d been in that stretch — and nearly claim the program’s 12th state title (first since 1997).

But Uhrig picked up on it.

“They walked into every game expecting to win,” he said. “They were practicing like that, playing like that. Every game, you couldn’t tell them they weren’t the better team.”

In Class 1A Division I, co-Whitepine League champions Potlatch and Lapwai — the state’s two top-ranked teams the last month — greatly anticipated meeting in the state title game. They both had 20 wins, and had only been topped by each other, and a couple of teams from higher classifications.

Lapwai, stocked full of overachieving underclassmen and headed by a hungry young coach, shot the lights out, and ran opponents’ legs off to get to Caldwell in search of its 11th title.

Potlatch, with a veteran coach of the area and a team (literally) full of skilled and athletic seniors — most of them relatives of past Logger standouts — knew the time was ripe to collect the program’s first championship. Potlatch had finished runner-up six times.

Instead, the teams’ semifinal losses kept the Whitepine League out of the weekend finale for the first time since 2004. Before Ambrose’s blowout win against Grace on Saturday at Nampa’s Idaho Center, the powerhouse conference from north central Idaho had taken 12 of the last 15 titles. It’d been four years since a southern team earned 1A DI gold.

Young Lapwai couldn’t atone for a slow-shooting start against Grace.

“They know what’s at stake, they know their families are watching them and they know their community’s behind them,” first-year Lapwai coach Zachary Eastman said. “I guarantee that feeling, right now, they’re gonna take it into the offseason. … These boys have two or three more years of this. The next season starts tomorrow. We’re definitely gonna be back here next year bigger, stronger and faster.”

Lapwai returns all but two players. Sophomore guard and league MVP Titus Yearout scored 30 points per game this year, and often controlled the flow of contests at State. Three of the team’s other tournament standouts — 6-4 post AJ Ellenwood, hot-shooting Kross Taylor and versatile Lydell Mitchell — are also back.

Lapwai (22-4), which was the district tournament runner-up, made it to State for the eighth straight time. having won twice. And these quick-paced, turnover-forcing, sharpshooting Wildcats will presumably become familiar faces there.

Potlatch, after a runaway Round 1 win against Riverstone International of Boise, was edged 39-37 by Ambrose of Meridian in overtime after the defensively disciplined Loggers stormed back. In an unanticipated third-place game — which, at times, felt like a title — the Wildcats strung together transition buckets and free throws to take over after halftime.

The tournament-favorite and transition-savvy Loggers (21-4), last year’s runners-up to Prairie of Cottonwood, will have to refill their entire roster next year. State standouts included all-league players Brayden Hadaller (17.7 points, five rebounds and five assists per game), Tyler Wilcoxson (15 points) and Connor Akins (12 points, six rebounds).

“We knew we had to face three really good teams, and we knew we had to play well all the time. We had some lapses, and didn’t play as well as we had in the past, and that happens sometimes,” Ball said. “I told the kids, ‘You know, you’re probably three seconds away from winning a state championship.’ I’m sure Lapwai feels the same way.

“I’m so proud of them, I think they were the best team all year, but that doesn’t mean you win the tournament.”

It became a toss-up, and ended unexpectedly for the three area teams that made it furthest.

Clark may be reached at cclark@lmtribune.com, on Twitter @ClarkTrib or by phone at (208) 848-2260.