6A DISTRICT 1 BOYS BASKETBALL: Lake City puts Post Falls away early, claims district's lone berth to state

By MARK NELKE 

Sports editor 

COEUR d’ALENE — After the first two games of the best-of-3 series for the 6A District 1 boys basketball title were decided by a combined five points, Lake City took the drama out of the deciding game in a hurry on Saturday afternoon. 

The top-seeded Timberwolves scored the game’s first nine points, and led by at least nine points from late in the first quarter on en route to a 69-52 victory over the second-seeded Post Falls Trojans before an estimated 2,500 at Lake City High. 

“Pretty much the mindset was to go in there and kill, to be honest,” said Lake City senior Josh Watson, who finished with 12 points, five rebounds and two steals. “We knew we were better than what we produced out there the last two games.” 

Lake City (16-8), ranked third in 6A by Max Preps, advances to state at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa beginning Thursday. The eight-team state tourneys are seeded by MaxPreps rankings, so the Timberwolves will likely learn their first-round foe today.

Post Falls (16-8) is ranked fourth by MaxPreps. 

But thanks (or no thanks) to three-team District 1 getting just one berth to state, the Trojans’ season is over. 

“It is extremely unfortunate to go from knocking on the doorstep (of going to state) to not really showing up today, which is too bad,” said first-year Post Falls coach Jayson Ulrich, whose Trojans lost at home in overtime in Game 2 on Thursday night with a chance to advance to state. 

Lake City junior Jackson Anderson hit two of his four 3-pointers and scored eight of his 22 points in the first quarter. 

"I knew they were going to go under all the screens today, because I struggled from deep in the first two games,” said Anderson, who was 4 of 7 from deep on Saturday. “I knew I was going to have to be ready to shoot the ball, and my teammates got it to me in places where I could do stuff with it. After I started hitting those 3s, the drives started opening up for me.” 

Anderson suffered a sprained right knee in the fall, and has only returned to normal the past month or so. 

"He’s had a really rough year; he’s finally getting healthy,” said James Anderson, Lake City’s third-year coach, and Jackson’s dad. “He’s feeling right again. Since I’ve coached him since he was little I’ve always known the bigger the moment the more he’s going to step up. So I was pretty confident he would have a pretty good series.”  

Junior Cashton Bodman finished with 22 points and seven rebounds for Post Falls. Senior Connor Carver added eight points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals, and senior Alex Dean scored eight points. 

Junior Jordan Carlson added 18 points, 12 points and three assists for Lake City, which won its fifth district title in six seasons, and second straight. 

"I just knew what we needed to do, that we needed to take care of business, and we did,” Carlson said. “It really started with defense, and once we take care of that, our offense started flowing.” 

Senior Jackson Bowman had 11 points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal. 

Lake City built a 30-15 lead on a 3-pointer by Bowman, and settled for a 32-21 halftime advantage. Post Falls came no closer than 12 in the second half, as the Timberwolves took advantage of their size advantage at both ends. 

Lake City shot 25 of 46 from the field, though was just 11 of 26 from the free-throw line. But the Timberwolves made up for it on defense.

Post Falls was 18 of 50 from the floor, including 4 of 19 on 3s. The Trojans were bidding for their first trip to state since 2020. 

“To try to come back from the night before, where you're one point away from getting down there (to state), you can taste it, that’s hard for a high school team to recover from,” Ulrich said. 

“Somebody has to stay home,” he added, “and it sucks that it was us.” 

“Shoutout to Connor Carver and Jaxon Lysne,” James Anderson said. “I don’t know if I’ve enjoyed competing against two kids that just do it right. Just broken hearted that they’re not going to be part of the state tournament if I’m being honest. Totally unfortunate that the North doesn’t get another bid this year, because they deserve to be a part of that. Unbelievable seniors that will be missed, that did it the right way.” 

Lake City senior guard Paxton Winey did not play after suffering a sprained ankle Thursday at Post Falls. But senior Ian Williams filled in capably, with three points, four rebounds, two steals and an assist. 

“Basically, we rallied around Paxton,” Bowman said. “We’re going to do it for him; let’s go do this for him. We came out with a different kind of energy, a different kind of mindset that we’re going to go out and take this from them.” 

Post Falls     8    13    15    16    —    52 

Lake City     20    12    21    16    —    69 

POST FALLS — Norisada 1, Auble 0, Bodman 22, Smith 0, Lysne 11, Naylor 2, Munday 0, Brown 0, Carver 8, Bresee 0, Dean 8. 

LAKE CITY — Williams 3, Oxenrider 0, Plummer 1, Carlson 18, Everson 0, Watson 12, Bowman 11, Hill 0, Anderson 22, Johnston 0, Pearson 2, Irgens 0. 

    JASON DUCHOW PHOTOGRAPHY Lake City junior Jackson Anderson (22) shoots over Post Falls junior Sawyer Norisada (1) in Game 3 of the 6A District 1 championship series Saturday at Lake City.