The Sandpoint girls basketball team has gone to the 4A Idaho state tournament seven out of the last eight years.

Four out of those seven years, the Class 4A district 1 crown was decided between Lakeland and Sandpoint.

The Bulldogs edged out the Hawks in Game 1 of the best-of-three series, 48-37 on Wednesday.

Game 2 will take place at 6 p.m. today at Sandpoint High School.

If Sandpoint wins, it will be crowned district champions, if Lakeland is victorious Game 3 will be on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Lakeland High School.

“It’s something we’re going to talk to the kids about,” Sandpoint girls basketball coach Will Love said. “A lot of our kids are familiar with the scenario because we had to go down and play Game 3 in Rathdrum last year.”

The Bulldogs beat the Hawks in Game 3 of the Class 4A District 1 championship on Feb. 13 2021 40-30.

The hardest part of the three game series is preparation, according to Love.

“It’s tough when you just have a day between games,” he said. “We’re not at the college or pro level, so we’re not just sending the girls a bunch of film. They’re in school learning so we can’t get into big time adjustments.”

For practice, Love said the Bulldogs will spend about 20 minutes looking at film and once they hit the court it’ll be low-intensity in preparation for today’s game.

Love, who is the journalism teacher at Sandpoint High School, also has a tough time with the short turnaround in terms of preparation.

“My primary job is being an educator,” Love said. “I don’t have lots of time to go through and look at the film, so it's kind of a mixture of what the assistant coaches have told me as far as putting together a game plan.”

On that film, the Bulldogs will see one of its best offensive outputs of the season.

The first quarter saw Sandpoint score 18 points, which gave them enough cushion to never quite be in danger.

Another key to its offensive success was how well they passed the ball; the Bulldogs tallied 14 assists throughout the contest.

“That’s a stat for a good offense,” Love said. “The girls are learning how to move the ball and look for an open teammate.”

While Sandpoint was distributing the ball well, at times, it seemed content with just moving the ball instead of taking shots.

“We need to be shot-ready,” Love said. “Sometimes we had opportunities to make shots, but they’d make decisions to kick it out. We’re going to emphasize being shot ready.”

Defensively, Sandpoint keys in on the opposing team's best player and limits them. The Bulldogs did a great job of this on Wednesday by limiting Hawks’ senior guard Addie Kiefer to nine points.

“She drives the engine over there,” Love said. “She’s a tremendous athlete and we did a great job of identifying where she was.”

Sandpoint and Lakeland have faced three times so far this season, with the Bulldogs currently leading the series 2-1.

The Hawks and Bulldogs know each other very well. They’ve had district championship meetings and regular season barnburners. Love has the utmost respect for Lakeland and its coach, Steve Seymour.

“Lakeland kids are tough,” Love said. “I knew, talking to both Seymour (Lakeland) and Alexa Hardick (Moscow girls basketball coach) that this year was going to be a grind. Not just districts but the regular season as well, and I respect both of them very much. It’ll be a tough matchup for us tonight.”