PREP BOYS BASKETBALL: Lakeside, Coeur du Christ on to state

• 2A

COEUR d’ALENE — Late in the first half, the top-seeded Lakeside Knights held just a 27-24 lead over the second-seeded Wallace Miners in the championship game of the 2A District 1 boys basketball tournament. 

“I reminded them, the past couple of district championship games, we’ve been really sluggish,” Lakeside coach James Twoteeth said. “We just think that we’ll show up, and they’ll lay down, and we’ll get a game. Even last year was really close; we only won by like eight. It’s the long break, it happens every year; we play our last game and we get two or three weeks off (the Knights’ last game before Tuesday was on Feb. 11, 13 days ago). So we don’t practice that much because we don’t want to get hurt. So it’s expected that we’ll be sluggish.” 

But when you can run and press like Lakeside can, the run can come at any time, and the sluggishness can go away. 

On Tuesday night, the Knights responded by scoring 34 straight points, shutting out the Miners until late in the third quarter, and Lakeside raced to its seventh straight district title with a 77-34 victory at North Idaho College’s Rolly Williams Court. 

"We had a two-week break, so we started off slow,” said Lakeside senior Tyson Charley, who finished with 20 points, 16 rebounds, 13 assists and six steals. “James talked to us at the half, and we just came out running.” 

Lakeside (19-2) advances to state March 5-7 at Vallivue High in Caldwell. The Knights will likely be the No. 2 seed at state, based on MaxPreps rankings, and will learn their first-round opponent on Sunday. 

Sophomore Lennox Radford scored eight points for Wallace, which finished 12-10. 

Many of Charley’s assists came in the first half, from the high post as Wallace tried a zone defense. 

Lakeside senior Hallah Peone hit three of his four 3-pointers in the second half, and had 15 of his 18 points after intermission.  

After Wallace closed to within three, Lakeside scored the last 12 points of the second quarter to lead 39-24 at halftime. The Knights then scored the first 22 points of the third quarter. 

“We’ve just got to stay running, especially down at state,” Peone said. We have to stay in shape and run teams up.” 

Sophomore Jose Ramirez added 11 points, and freshman Teagan Brown had 10 points and four assists for Lakeside. 

Wallace     14    10    4    6    —    34 

Lakeside     25    14    22    16    —    77 

WALLACE — Miller 7, Myles 5, Sodbat 3, Larson 3, McGillivray 1, Stone 3, Rose 0, Radford 8, Strange 0, Willams 4, Murray 0. 

LAKESIDE — Peone 18, Sines 2, Louie 7, Brown 10, Iron Cloud 1, Chimburas 0, Charley 20, Ramirez 11, GreenSky 0, Samuels 0, Pluff 8. 

• 1A

Coeur du Christ 54 

Kootenai 27 

COEUR d’ALENE — When the Coeur du Christ Saints were asked to come out to midcourt and accept their trophy for winning the 1A District championship, the Saints players hesitated before proceeding. 

Forgive Coeur du Christ for perhaps thinking ahead, and a return trip to state. 

“The job’s not finished,” senior Jerome Cools said after the top-seeded Saints defeated the second-seeded Kootenai Warriors 54-27 on Tuesday night at North Idaho College’s Rolly Williams Court. “Yeah, we’ll take this as a great win and yeah, it’s great to win districts, but we’re just really excited for state now.” 

Sophomore Grant Clemens and junior Abraham Mudrick scored 10 points each for Coeur du Christ (14-6), which advances to state March 5-7 at Caldwell High. The Saints, in their second year as a full member of the Idaho High School Activities Association, qualified for state for the second straight year. 

As of Monday, Coeur du Christ was ranked 14th in 1A by MaxPreps. The Saints will learn their first-round foe on Sunday. 

“We have bigger goals,” Coeur du Christ senior Aedan O’Neill said. “We can’t slow down; we can’t party because we won districts.” 

“It’s been a great season; there’s been a lot of ups and downs,” first-year Coeur du Christ coach Austin Paulsen said. “But the cool part of this season was, we really started to learn how to play as a team, learn how to trust each other.” 

Sophomore Dylan Gentry had 15 points and 10 rebounds for Kootenai. Senior Riley Ausman had 12 points and seven boards. 

“We’ve faced many challenges and injuries this season which held us from our full potential,” first-year Kootenai coach Mary Gentry said. “This week, our team really came together and played as a fighting unit. We spent a lot of energy last night against Mullan (a 49-32 win) but tonight we played with grit. The score does not reflect the intensity these boys played with, we just couldn’t get a lot of our shots to fall.” 

Kootenai     2    8    7    10    —    27 

Coeur du Christ     20    7    15    12    —    54 

KOOTENAI — Derry 0, Braz 0, Ausman 12, Edwards 0, Gentry 15, Moore 0. 

COEUR du CHRIST — Anderson 0, Gama 4, Manuel 6, Clemens 10, Beyer 1, Clute 0, Hayes 9, Cools 8, Mudrick 10, Sundholm 2, Eloe 0, O’Neill 4. 

• 5A

Moscow 65 

Lakeland 52 

RATHDRUM — The third-seeded Hawks saw their season come to an end with the loss to the fourth-seeded Bears in a loser-out game in the 5A Region 1 tournament. 

Lakeland beat Moscow by 8 and 21 points during 5A Inland Empire League play. But on Tuesday night at Hawk Court, Moscow jumped out to a 37-17 halftime lead. 

“Credit to Moscow, they came ready to play tonight,” second-year Lakeland coach Caleb De Fabiis said. “Our kids got behind early and we couldn’t dig ourselves out of that hole.” 

Junior Keaton Frei scored 27 points, senior Abram Godfrey 18 for Moscow (4-19), which will play at second-seeded Sandpoint (11-12) on Thursday in the second-place game for a spot in Saturday’s state play-in game. Sandpoint lost 72-54 at top-seeded Lewiston (20-3) in the regional championship game. 

Senior Peyton Hillman scored 20 points for Lakeland, which finished 8-13. Senior Jaron Yager added 13 points for the Hawks, who played the second half of the season with senior post Brayden Carrel, who suffered a broken bone in his foot. 

Moscow     19    18    18    10    —    65 

Lakeland    9    8    17    18    —    52 

MOSCOW — Leisinger 1, Godfrey 18, Frei 27, Couch 3, Pike 5, Carr 0, Mordhorst 11. 

LAKELAND — Boardman 3, Tuskan 3, Fuhriman 4, Yager 13, Young 0, Hocking 9, Hillman 20. 

    MARK NELKE/Press Coeur du Christ freshman Kamden Manuel (10) takes it to the hoop as Kootenai senior Joshua Moore defends Tuesday night during the 1A District 1 championship game at North Idaho College.