Lakeside Back In A-4 Tournament

State A-3/A-4

Lakeside High School girls basketball coach Ron Miller likes being back in the A-4 ranks after spending three mediocre years in the A-3 division.

He’s equally tickled to be headed back to a state tournament.

In two previous years in the A-4 division, Miller’s teams qualified for state.

His first team, Plummer, won the state title in 1989-90. The following year, when Plummer and Worley were combined to form Lakeside, the Knights advanced to state but were eliminated in two games.

The Knights (12-10 overall), young and short, open play at state tonight with modest expectations. Lakeside takes on traditional state qualifier Cambridge (19-5) at 7:15 PST at Borah High School.

In other openers, HighlandCraigmont (21-4) meets Maranatha Christian (18-6), Nampa Christian (22-1) goes against Oakley (20-3) and Shoshone (22-1) takes on North Gem (13-10).

“Our expectations aren’t real high, but we want to go down and win at least one ballgame,” Miller said. “We accomplished our team goal and that was to get to state.”

Miller knows very little about Cambridge. But the name of the opponent itself draws Miller’s respect.

“They’re a perennial qualifier,” Miller said.

So Miller’s approach is simple: The less he and his team knows about the opponent, the better.

“We’re just concentrating on what we need to do,” he said. “Whether we win or lose we expect the other teams to know they had to play 32 minutes to beat us. Or I won’t be satisfied.”

The Knights are led by 5-foot-7 sophomore post Margaret SiJohn (9.5 points per game) and 5-7 junior guard Jennifer Niebuhr (9 ppg).

Lakeside tries to make up for its lack of size and offensive punch by playing a full-court pressure game.

Highland-Craigmont, Nampa Christian and Shoshone are expected to challenge for the state title.

State A-3 Tournament

Idaho’s second- smallest division opens tournament play tonight at Capital High School in Boise.

A new champion will be decided, but it could come from the same league that produced last year’s winner, Grangeville.

The Central Idaho League has two teams at state in Clearwater Valley (24-2) and Lapwai (17-9), which upset CV in the state-qualifying district tournament before the Rams defeated Lapwai twice to earn the district title.

In openers today, CV takes on

Fruitland (19-6), Firth (14-8) meets Lapwai, Melba (14-9) battles Valley (15-8) and Grace (19-6) goes against Kimberly (23-4).