Moscow In Finals; St. Maries Loses

State A-2 boys basketball

Freshman forward Darnell Williams scored 21 points and senior guard Kirby Brown added 16 to lead Moscow to a 69-65 win over Emmett in semifinal play Friday at the Idaho A-2 boys high school basketball tournament.

Emmett was led by senior forward Brandon Johns with a game-high 25 points.

Moscow will meet Bishop Kelly for the A-2 title today at 4:50 p.m. PST in the Idaho Center at Nampa.

Emmett led by one point at the half, and outscored Moscow 12-8 in the third quarter, but a 28-19 Moscow scoring run in the fourth gave the Bears the victory.

Moscow also took advantage of shooting opportunities from three-point range, collecting nine points while Emmett scored none.

Earlier, senior post Abe Jackson scored a game-high 23 points to lead Bishop Kelly to a 52-39 win over St. Maries in the other semifinal.

St. Maries will play in the third-and fifth-place game today against Emmett at 10 a.m. PST at Meridian High School.

Bishop Kelly led St. Maries 25-14 at the half. But the Lumberjacks outscored Bishop Kelly by a point in the third quarter and closed to within four points with 5 minutes left in the fourth period.

However, Jackson hit a pair of 3-pointers to help Bishop Kelly pull away.

St. Maries was led by Mark Raebel with 13 points and six rebounds and Kyle Stevenson with 12 points and eight rebounds.

Jackson, 6-foot-7, pierced the St. Maries defense to hit 9 of 17 shots. He also had 11 rebounds.

While Bishop Kelly scored nine points off turnovers to St. Maries’ 10, the Knights scored 17 free-throw points to five for the Lumberjacks.

St. Maries (18-8) hit just 17 of 50 shots and was 0 for 10 from 3-point range.

Earlier, Senior Joseph Pettingill’s 15 points led six Tigers in double figures as Jerome clobbered Shelley 86-52.

And Preston got 16 points from Ben Heusser and 14 from Noel Creel en route to a 67-58 victory over Sugar-Salem. The Indians will play Jerome today for the tournament’s consolation title.

Jerome dominated Shelley in their loser-out game, outscoring the Russets 27-16 off the bench and 19-3 from the free-throw line.

The Tigers built a 20-6 first-quarter lead and were ahead 46-16 by halftime.

Besides Pettingill, Jerome got 13 points from Brad Stokes, 12 each from Mike Williams and Cody Grove and 10 each from Timothy Dunne and Donavan Advield.

Shelley was paced by juniors Brandon Shumway with 14 points and Jared Searle with 11.

Preston trailed Sugar-Salem 27-26 at halftime of their consolation game. But the Indians outscored the Diggers 25-17 in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.

Preston hit 9 of 23 attempts from 3-point range for 27 points and got eight rebounds each from Heusser and Jordan Galloway.

Sugar-Salem was paced by 6-foot-5 senior Shane Dalling with 19 points and 11 rebounds, and junior Matt Gage added 12 points for the Diggers.

Bishop Kelly 53, St. Maries 39

Bishop Kelly 11 14 11 16 - 52

Saint Maries 6 8 12 13 - 39

BISHOP KELLY - Horras 1, Satterfield 2, Goodson 9, Levandusky 2, Violette 6, Jackson 23, Zimmerman 8, Camman 1.

ST. MARIES - Krebs 3, Duffey 7, Willard 0, D.J. Eberlin 0, P. Eberlin 0, Stevenson 12, Driggs 4, Ware 0, Holdahl 0, Raebel 13.

Moscow 69, Emmett 65

EMMETT - Lopez 14, Thayn 11, Beitia 2, Youngstrom 5, Radke 4, Rahrer 4, Johns 25.

MOSCOW - Brown 16, Rinaldi 4, Williams 21, Reynolds 3, Comstock 6, Nielsen 2, Busch 2, Cosgrove 5, Shupe 5, Westberg 5.

Halftime-Emmett 34, Moscow 33.

, DataTimes