Priest River Stuns Bonners Ferry

A-2 District I-II Tournament

For a second straight year, Priest River boys basketball coach Kelly Reed brought his bag of miracles to the loser-out round of the A-2 District I-II Tournament.

Reed’s sixth-seeded Spartans pulled off the upset of the two-game opening round Tuesday, shocking No. 3 Bonners Ferry 75-68 at Lake City High School.

In the second game, No. 4 St. Maries downed a leg-weary Lakeland team 66-51 in a game much closer than the final score.

The top seeds enter the double-elimination portion of the tournament tonight. In the first game, No. 2 Moscow (16-3) takes on Priest River (5-15) at 6, followed by No. 1 Kellogg (17-3) meeting St. Maries (9-10) at about 7:30.

Tonight’s winners advance to the district championship game Friday at 7:30 p.m. The losers meet in a loser-out game the same night at 6.

The top two teams advance to state.

Bonners Ferry ended its season at 10-10, while Lakeland finished 2-17.

Priest River 75, Bonners Ferry 68

Somebody forgot to tell Reed that last-place teams aren’t supposed to win first-round games.

“That’s our best effort of the season,” said Reed, who couldn’t wipe an ear-to-ear grin off his face. “And it’s the most points we’ve scored all season. It couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Priest River’s approach offensively against the Badgers was simple: screen and move.

And be patient. The Spartans executed the plan to near perfection.

It was timely too that guard Darin Bradbury had his best game of the season, perhaps his career. He scored a team-high 34 points, 17 in the pivotal third quarter. In that period, Bradbury made 7 of 8 shots from the field as the Spartans added to a nine-point bulge at halftime and led 53-35 going into what would be a furious fourth quarter.

Bonners Ferry would outscore the Spartans 33-22 in the final 8 minutes, but it wouldn’t be enough to offset Priest River’s torrid foul shooting.

The Spartans secured the win by making 12 of 18 foul shots. Bradbury made 9 of 9 for the game.

Priest River also did a fine job defending one of the league’s top scorers, Badgers guard Adam Hiatt.

Hiatt scored just one point in the first half, but finished with 22 - including 16 in the fourth quarter.

“We have two offensive rules: screen and move,” Reed said. “The guys have run it very well and we get a lot of fouls and a lot of layups.”

Bonners Ferry 9 13 13 33 - 68

Priest River 21 10 22 22 - 75

BONNERS FERRY Bahe 2, A. Hiatt 22, Meeker 17, Ashby 15, Staples 0, Robertson 3, Carey 1, Ross 8.

PRIEST RIVER Score 14, Ackley 1, Bradbury 34, Rabe 10, Thornton 13, Cook 0, Walters 3, Storro 0.

St. Maries 66, Lakeland 51

The teams traded leads seven times in the first half before Lakeland settled for a 28-27 advantage at halftime.

The second half opened as if the same pattern from the first half would continue. But beginning with 5:43 left in the third quarter, St. Maries asserted control.

A 10-0 run to close the period gave the Lumberjacks a 43-32 lead going into the fourth quarter. Four Lumberjacks contributed during the spurt.

Doing most of the damage from tip to final horn - especially in the second half - was 6-5 junior post Chris Weinmann.

Weinmann scored a game-high 29 points, twisting and spinning his way into the key against a soft Lakeland interior defense. He scored 19 in the second half.

Lakeland cut the lead to 49-44 with 2:34 left, but St. Maries would stretch the lead in the final minutes.

It was the Hawks’ fourth game in five days. “I was hoping fatigue would be a factor,” first-year St. Maries coach Todd Bitterman said. “We pushed the ball a little bit and pressed a couple of times to try to get them off-balance.”

The victory was particularly sweet, Bitterman said, for the win-starved St. Maries program. “A lot of our seniors haven’t experienced this,” he said.

It was Lakeland coach Mike Bayley’s last game. The toll of coaching two sports back-to-back for 10 years caught up with him this fall and early winter when he had health problems.

St. Maries 10 17 16 23 - 66

Lakeland 16 12 4 19 - 51

ST. MARIES Spooner 0, Sindt 0, Craner 7, Eccles 0, Mettler 0, Eberlin 6, Weinmann 29, M. Raebel 2, Holdahl 4, Dawson 0, S. Raebel 18.

LAKELAND Holt 0, Banks 0, Bevacqua 4, Larsen 2, DeBoer 1, Freed 9, Kowalczyk 4, Rothrock 16, Dotts 2, Mudge 13, Moore 0, Thirrign 0.

A-1 Region I

Post Falls 64, Lewiston 61

Brason Alexander had a game-high 17 points and added eight assists as the visiting Trojans (12-9) eliminated the Bengals (7-15). Jeremy McLean added five steals for Post Falls, which advances to a state-qualifying playoff game at 2 p.m. Saturday in Grangeville. The Trojans will play the No. 4 team out of the Boise area, to be determined today.

Lewiston 17 14 8 22 - 61

Post Falls 16 17 14 17 - 64

LEWISTON Charlo 2, Perez 0, Frei 8, Farris 12, Steele 13, Sullivan 0, Frasier 0, Albright 0, Williams 10, Egland 2, Lorentz 0, Feider 14.

POST FALLS Bechel 0, Alexander 17, Quesnell 12, McLean 16, Hollenbeck 10, Campbell 0, O’Briant 0, Lee 7, Shepherd 0, Juhlin 2.

Tourney begins tonight

The North Star League’s A-4 District I Tournament begins tonight at Lakeland High School in Rathdrum.

League champ and top-seeded Lakeside (17-3) takes on No. 4 Falls Christian (9-10) at 6, followed by No. 2 Mullan (13-5) and No. 3 Clark Fork (9-10) at 7:30.

The winners meet Friday for the district title. Lakeside must be beaten twice before it can be eliminated.

, DataTimes