Lake City battles, but falls short to Lewiston

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

COEUR d’ALENE — Defensively, Lake City gave itself a shot to make something happen in its home finale.

But the spark on offense came just a little too late.

Sophomore Tyson Ruggiero, in his first varsity game of the season, led the Timberwolves on a scoring drive late in the fourth quarter, eventually scoring on a 5-yard run with 1:48 remaining of a 22-6 5A Inland Empire League loss on senior night at Lake City High on Friday.

“Tyson broke his hand after game one, so this is the first week he’s been able to practice,” first-year Lake City coach Byron Hout said. “We had a QB battle going through camp and named Cherry the starter and Tyson played JV, broke his hand. He had a good healing process and was able to come back. We felt like he was ready and he played JV on Thursday, and we saved him a few quarters because we thought we might get him in there tonight.”

After forcing a turnover on downs, Lake City sophomore Ike Johnson broke a 23-yard run, followed by a 41-yard pass to junior Travis Usdrowski to move the Timberwolves into scoring position.

Lewiston opened the scoring on a 3-yard touchdown run by Jackson Lathen less than 4 minutes into the game. That score was set up by a first down on a 4th and 28 pass from senior quarterback Drew Hottinger to Rylan Gomez.

Lake City remained close as senior Luke Lasher forced a fumble and also blocked a field goal in the first half.

“Our defense played really well, and had two turnovers in the first half,”Hout said. “They came out and fought, and I’m proud of them.”

Lewiston was backed up to the 30-yard line on its opening possession getting the score.

“Rylan is 6-foot-5 and we need to take some shots and let him go get the ball,” Lewiston coach Matt Pancheri said. “We didn’t complete a lot of passes and were dropping them like crazy. We needed that conversion there, and were able to get a little business going.”

Lathen ran for 110 yards, Hottinger 167 for Lewiston (4-4, 1-1 5A IEL), which visits Coeur d’Alene next Friday.

“We’re going to have to live and die by what we can get out of our guys,” Lewiston coach Matt Pancheri said. “I thought they came to play tonight. We had some big runs by Drew and Jacky, and we got enough done to get out of here with a win.”

Johnson ran for 49 yards, most coming in the fourth quarter for Lake City (2-6, 0-2), which visits Post Falls next Thursday.

“I know they run the ball really well,” said Hout of Post Falls. “Looking at the scores, they do a hell of a job putting up points. It’s going to be a tough battle for us.”

“Byron’s such a good coach,” Pancheri said. “This is going to be a completely different football program I think moving forward. Lake City has nowhere to go but up right now. They’re a super physical team right now.”

Lewiston 7 7 8 0 — 22

Lake City 0 0 0 6 — 6

First quarter

Lew — Jackson Lathen 3 run (Alex Hernandez kick), 8:55

Second quarter

Lew — Drew Hottinger 2 run (Hernandez kick), 3:29

Third quarter

Lew — Hottinger 1 run (Connor Frei run), 5:38

Fourth quarter

LC — Tyson Ruggiero 5 run (pass failed), 1:48

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — Lew, Lathen 25-110, Hottinger 19-167, Gomez 1-28, Yoder 4-52. LC, Hawkins 2-3, Cherry 4-4, Usdrowski 1-4, Carmignani 2-3, Johnson 9-49, Profumo 4-18, Wullenwaber 6-25.

PASSING — Lew, Hottinger, 9-22-0-46. LC, Cherry, 2-10-0-15, Ruggiero, 5-6-0-62.

RECEIVING — Lew, Grittner 1-10, Yoder 3-21, Alldredge 2-23, Gomez 3-26. LC, Hill 5-36, Walstrom 1-0, Usdrowski 2-41.