Trojans settle for future

Post Falls High boys basketball coach Dave Stockwell keeps telling himself that the final stretch of the regular season against the Inland Empire League’s 5A teams will make his team better.

If Stockwell doesn’t see the fruit until postseason, that’s fine with him.

League-leading Lewiston handed the Trojans a third consecutive loss Thursday as the Bengals withstood Post Falls’ 3-point shooting barrage for a 69-65 win in overtime at The Arena.

The difficult road began a week ago for Post Falls when it fell 97-85 to Coeur d’Alene. Two nights later, Lake City clipped the Trojans 40-39 despite not scoring in the final 9 minutes, 16 seconds.

Neither Stockwell nor his 4A Trojans are hanging their heads, though.

“The district seeding has probably already been determined so we’re not concerned about that,” Stockwell said. “What we need to do is learn how to win this game next time and build from there.”

Lewiston (16-1, 8-1) stretched its lead to two games over idle Moscow (6-3) and LC, which moved to 6-3 with a 51-45 win over Sandpoint. The Bengals need just one win in their final three games to secure the top seed to the 5A Region I tourney. Post Falls slipped to 10-7 and 4-6.

The Trojans probably should have won in regulation. They made all five of their 3-point attempts in the fourth quarter, but managed just 2 of 7 from the foul line.

Lewiston coach Dave Cornelia said his team’s game plan was to stop the 3-point shooting of Spencer Pingel and Brandon Haas, who combined to make 14 of 22 attempts. Pingel, who made eight, hit a running 33-footer as the horn sounded in overtime.

“Our whole pregame was to stop (them), but I think what we’re going to do next time is just say don’t guard them because it didn’t do us much good,” Cornelia said. “There were a few times our defense was pretty poor and we lost them, but there were a few times that they just made shots. The law of averages should catch up. Not to make a joke out of it, but I think teams are going to start to foul them. They were better from (3-point range) than the free-throw line.”

Post Falls made 15 of 28 3-point attempts, but the Trojans were 8 of 17 from the foul line.

Worse yet, the taller Bengals owned the boards. Lewiston outrebounded the Trojans 42-37, but it was most glaring on the offensive glass where the Bengals owned a 21-10 advantage. That led to four second-chance baskets in the first half and four more in the final two quarters.

Pingel finished with a game-high 26 points and Haas added 21.

Point guard Zack Deines was scoreless but had nine assists and drew the difficult assignment of guarding Lewiston’s 6-foot-4 wing Bo Gregg, who scored a workman-like 12 points.

Lewiston point guard Shane Moser had a team-high 15 points, eight of which came on four nice drives in the lane in the third quarter.

Jordan Gregg, Bo’s cousin, added 14 and 6-8 post Andrew Packwood owned the key with six of Lewiston’s nine blocked shots to go with nine points and nine rebounds.