League-Perfect Lake City Defeats Lewiston Lc Wins 12th Straight At Home; Await Return Of Top Player Jon Chatfield

It isn’t the way Jim Winger would have drawn it up on the locker room chalkboard. Nonetheless his Lake City High School boys basketball team reached the midway point of the Inland Empire League undefeated Friday.

The most satisfying element for Winger is the Timberwolves are 4-0 in league and two of those victories have come without their top player.

And three of LC’s league victories haven’t been what Winger would call artistic, including its 54-39 decision over Lewiston at LC on Friday.

“Considering the circumstances I’m pretty dang excited really,” said Winger, alluding to the temporary loss of Jon Chatfield (stress fracture), who could return as early as Friday when LC travels to Post Falls.

“You still have to look at it this way - we still have to prove ourselves at three places on the road. But without Jon our other kids have really picked it up. I’m really proud of them the way they’ve responded to that, even though it might not have been pretty at times.”

Second-ranked LC, which controlled the game from early in the second quarter through the end of the third period, went stale in the opening moments of the final quarter.

The T-Wolves, who led by as many as 16 points early in the third quarter, watched their lead dissolve to four. Lewiston’s Carson Egland took an inside feed from Ben Feider for a layup and Michael Charlo got a putback off a weakside rebound as the Bengals cut the margin to 38-34 with 6 minutes remaining.

LC gave Lewiston another opportunity to trim the lead following a T-Wolf timeout. But Lewiston turned the ball back over, and that’s when Scott Hoover came to the rescue for a second straight game.

The 6-foot-5 senior slipped loose on the baseline for a three-point play to extend LC’s lead to 41-34. He followed that with a crowd-stirring slam dunk.

Hoover broke to an open spot along the endline as Lewiston used fullcourt pressure, and guard Jerid Keefer broke free and fed a nice pass to Hoover, who drove past the 6-8 Feider on the baseline for the dunk.

Moments later, Hoover hit both ends of a one-and-one situation and followed with an 18-foot jumper from the top of the key to push LC’s lead to 47-36 with 2:39 left.

Hoover, who scored 13 of his game-high 21 points in the final quarter, wasn’t finished. His exclamation point came on a running 8-foot bankshot that made the score 49-36 with 1:12 remaining.

Game over.

“You can only come back so many times and (at 38-34) that was probably our final chance for a run and we stepped on our own foot,” Lewiston coach Dick Richel said.

In raising its overall record to 11-3, LC won its 12th straight at home since last season and is 7-0 at home in league games since the school opened last year.

It was Lewiston’s (5-8, 2-1) lowest point total of the season, eclipsing a 58-46 loss earlier to Moscow.

Lewiston, which has struggled shooting from the perimeter all season, went scoreless from the perimeter in the first half.

Bengal guard Clayton Steele warmed up in the second half, scoring all 16 of his team-high points. LC did a solid job limiting Feider to 10.

Another key for the T-Wolves was rebounding. LC outrebounded Lewiston 35-24, and Richel lamented the many second and third chances LC received in the first half.

Lake City 54, Lewiston 39

Lewiston 8 6 16 9 - 39

Lake City 13 13 12 16 - 54

LEWISTON Charlo 4, Perez 0, Frei 2, Farris 1, Steele 16, Albright 0, Williams 4, Egland 2, Lorentz 0, Feider 10.

LAKE CITY Camantigue 2, Thompson 3, Keefer 6, Hoover 21, Beadell 17, Asper 5, Bryan 0.

, DataTimes