Inland Empire League boys basketball fans can plan on attending the A-1 Region I state-qualifying tournament at Post Falls late next month.
OK, so it's not official. But it would take all but a collapse for the Trojans not to do what they were picked to do before the season - capture the Inland Empire League title and play host to the regional tourney.
For a second straight night, Post Falls put up 50 points in the first half. Although their legs became weary in the second half, the visiting Trojans waltzed past struggling Sandpoint on Friday, 79-53.
Post Falls coach Scott Moore, whose club moved to 10-3 overall and 3-0 in league, would have nothing to do with talk of a league title.
"I still think anybody on any given night can beat anybody," said Moore, whose team's three league victories include two wins on the road.
Sandpoint dropped to 6-9 and 0-3, last in the league.
Post Falls appeared to pick up where it left off in an impressive 84-34 non-league win over Lakeland on Thursday.
Against Sandpoint, the Trojans' spunky guards, Chad Quesnell and Brason Alexander, were pushing the throttle as usual in the first half. They combined for 31 points in the opening two quarters as Post Falls took a 50-22 lead into intermission.
The Trojan duo penetrated, hit open jump shots and dished off to open teammates inside. Quesnell scored a team-high 28 points and Alexander finished with 16 coupled with six assists on several nice wrap-around passes in the key. Travis Bohn added 15 points.
Post Falls enjoyed its biggest lead at 58-25 when Quesnell hit a 3-pointer with 6:08 left in the third quarter.
That's when the Trojans' fuel meter dipped to near-empty. Sandpoint used a 13-4 spurt to close the quarter at 62-38.
"As the game went on we were running on fumes," Moore said. "We spent a lot of energy (Thursday). I give a lot of credit to my kids. They came ready to play and it's very hard to play up here in this gym."
The second half was primarily 16 minutes of disinterest with the game already decided. Sandpoint coach Jack Dyck would possibly argue that his team was disinterested for 32 minutes.
"We needed to play a lot harder, basically," Dyck said. "The elements of the game that we wanted to address was prevent their guards from penetrating and we needed to do a good job blocking off. And we didn't do either one of those things well."
The Trojans continue to improve. And their unselfish play continues to amaze Moore.
"The one thing I've said from (from the first day) is this is a true example of a team," Moore said. "They don't care who the high scorer is; they don't care who gets the credit. All they want to do is win."
Stephen Palmer led Sandpoint with 11 points, nine coming in the second half.
"We're not playing very well right now," Dyck said. "We're in a weird funk. When we play hard we play a lot better. Right now we're trying to discover the key to get the kids to play harder."
Post Falls 79, Sandpoint 53
Post Falls 23 27 12 17 - 79 Sandpoint 10 12 16 15 - 53
Post Falls - Quesnell 28, Alexander 16, Bohn 15, Lee 5, McLean 2, Therrian 4, Juhlin 5, Fehling 2, Curlee 0, Meeks 2.
Sandpoint - Boren 10, Nieman 9, Jeffres 7, Bowman 4, Eller 0, Herrington 7, Palmer 11, Gehring 1, Kleinert 2, Faulkner 2.
