Nic Wins; Region Tourney Next

The North Idaho College men’s basketball team ended its regular season on a positive note Saturday, defeating Snow College 81-68 in Scenic West Athletic Conference action.

The Cardinals broke open a close game late in the second half and went on to bury the Badgers from Ephraim, Utah, before 700 fans in Christianson Gym.

And in doing so, NIC raised its SWAC record to 8-10 and secured the No. 7 seed into this week’s Region 18 tournament, and that could be big.

The Cardinals (16-14 overall) will open the tournament against secondseeded Ricks College at 5 p.m. PST Thursday. If they had lost Saturday, they would have had to face league champion College of Southern Idaho on its home court. Not an easy task.

So the Cardinals - and in particular guard Eddie Turner - made sure that wouldn’t happen.

Turner and fellow guard Steve Helm fueled a 9-0 run midway through the second half as the Cardinals turned a 59-58 deficit into a 68-59 lead.

Turner finished with 26 points and 10 assists while Helm chipped in 16 points and five assists to lead the Cardinals.

“It’s hard to go against the No. 1 team at their place,” Helm said, noting the Cardinals didn’t want a first-round match with CSI. “I had that in the back of my mind and I know my teammates did to, so we stepped it up a notch and went as hard as we could.”

The Cardinals then provided the knockout punch with another 13-2 run to put the game out of reach at 81-63 with 4:12 to go.

That onslaught was led by sophomore Tedy Russinov, who benefitted from a couple of nice passes from Turner, one leading to a two-handed slam to put an exclamation mark on the victory with 4:59 to go.

Russinov had 20 points and led the Cardinals with seven rebounds.

“When Tedy’s on fire, you can’t stop him,” Turner said.

The Cardinals also received a big lift in the second half from freshman Eric Sanchez, who came of the bench to provide some valuable defense and rebounding.

And in addition to his 10 assists,

Turner also dished out some credit to Sanchez.

“Eric’s our sparkplug. He’s a (Dennis) Rodman-type because he hits the boards,” Turner said. “He comes into the locker room and he’s got stuff (bruises, cuts, scrapes) all over his body.”

NIC shot 58 percent from the field and, according to Snow coach Jon Judkins, that was the difference in the game.

“They (Cardinals) did a good job tonight,” Judkins said. “They got a lot of second shots off offensive rebounds. We came back pretty well, but we just didn’t do the things we needed to do to win.”

With the loss, Snow drops to 7-11 in SWAC play and 15-15 overall. It enters the Region 18 tourney as the No. 8 seed and will open against CSI on Thursday.

North Idaho 81, Snow 68

SNOW (7-11, 15-15)

Englebright 4-7-0-0 9, Hales 3-7 2-2 10, Kelley 4-11 0-0 11, Mavis 2-4 0-0 6, Miller 8-13 0-1 17, MacArthur 2-3 0-0 5, Tracy 2-4 0-0 4, Willden 1-7 3-6 5, Bodily 0-1 1-2 1. Totals 26-56 6-11 68.

NORTH IDAHO (8-10, 16-14)

Dial 0-0 0-0 0, Helm 7-11 0-1 16, Snook 1-1 0-0 2, Thompson 3-6 2-2 8, Turner 10-18 2-3 26, Russinov 9-13 2-3 20, Sanchez 2-4 1-1 5, Palumbis 1-2 0-1 2, Kruiswyk 1-4 0-0 2. Totals 34-59 7-11 81.

Halftime-NIC 45, Snow 37. 3-point field goals-Snow 10-16 (Englebright 1-2, Hales 2-2, Kelley 3-6, Mavis 2-4, Miller 1-1, MacArthur 1-1), NIC 6-14 (Helm 2-4, Thompson 0-1, Turner 4-8, Russinov 0-1). Rebounds-Snow 31 (Miller 8), NIC 28 (Russinov 7). Assists-Snow 22 (Kelley 7), NIC 25 (Turner 10). Total fouls- Snow 17, NIC 12. Fouled out-none. Attendance-700.