Fulton Rescues Kellogg With Big Second Half

Travis Fulton knows his role for the Kellogg Wildcat boys basketball team.

So no one was worried when the senior point guard was held scoreless in the first half of the Wildcats game against the Lake City Timberwolves Tuesday.

But Fulton showed up at crunch time.

Fulton, Kellogg’s leading scorer, scored 12 second-half points and hit two crucial free throws with seven seconds on the clock to help the Wildcats preserve a 60-56 nonleague win over the T-Wolves at Lake City.

Fulton shrugged off his first half performance as part of his job.

“My job is to get everyone into the flow of the game. I usually look to pass at the beginning of the game,” Fulton said. “At the end of the game, though, I want the ball. It’s my job to be at the line.”

And fortunately for Kellogg, the Timberwolves put him there but the Wildcats had to dodge a few major bullets first.

Kellogg led by just one at 57-56 with 2:26 left and after a timeout, the Wildcats went into a delay.

But a turnover at 1:24 gave the ball back to Lake City.

The T-Wolves would have three opportunities to score over the next minute and got good shots, but the ball just wouldn’t fall.

Forced to foul, Lake City fell behind 58-56 when Kellogg’s Tim Kohal converted the front end of a one-and-one with 20 seconds left.

The T-Wolves pulled down the rebound on Kohal’s second attempt but before they could get a shot off, and errant pass flew out of bounds along with any hopes for a comeback.

Fulton was fouled immediately on the inbounds pass and sealed the victory with his two free throws.

“We just ran out of gas,” said Lake City’s Bryan Kelly who had another good night with 23 points for the T-Wolves. “We missed a lot of layins right at the end and that was the game.”

Kellogg, 11-3 overall, led most of the way after taking a 19-12 lead early but Lake City stayed close and actually took a brief lead at 2:37 of the second quarter on a nice spin move by Kelly to make the score 26-25.

But Kellogg regained the lead 7 seconds later on a layin by junior post Casey Fisher, who hit his first seven shots and finished with 20 points.

It was a lead they would never relinquish.

“That was a nice win,” said Kellogg coach David Roberts. “I didn’t think either team played the best they could play although they (the T-Wolves) did a good job in their half-court offense and got some good shots out of it.”

Lake City (9-5) was playing without leading scorer Brian Russell who sat out the game due to a team rule violation. But despite the absence of Russell, Lake City coach Jim Winger was pleased with the effort of his team.

“I thought we played our tails off,” he said. “If we’d made a few layins, we would have won the game. I’ll guarantee you, when the ball gets thrown up Saturday against Post Falls, we won’t be thinking about Kellogg.”

Lake City returns to action Saturday at Post Falls while Kellogg plays host to Bonners Ferry Friday.

Kellogg 60, Lake City 56

Kellogg 21 11 16 12 - 60 Lake City 14 14 15 13 - 56

KELLOGGVan Hoose 0, Fulton 12, Behm 0, Jennings 12, Kohal 3, Fisher 20, Nielsen 8, Bircher 5. LAKE CITYThompson 2, Kelly 23, Shaw 3, Wilson 2, Miller 15, Hoover 11, Beadell 0.