Cda, Sandpoint Advance

The Coeur d’Alene Vikings strengthened their status as the team to beat in the A-1 Region 1 volleyball tournament Tuesday night by virtue of a 15-12, 15-10 victory over Lewiston.

“This is the seniors last chance at state and tonight we pulled together and played to win,” Vikings senior Jessica Janke said.

At the same time in Sandpoint, the Bulldogs were in the process of setting up a Thursday night championship showdown against the Vikings by defeating Lake City 15-10, 15-11.

CdA lived up to its No. 1 tournament seed behind the play of seniors Janke and Angie Shirley. Janke led the Vikings with four aces and played inspired defense to keep the Bengals from putting together any rallies.

“Jessica really wanted to win tonight and the rest of the team was pumped up also,” Shirley said.

Shirley had six blocks to lead the Vikings (19-4), who dominated the Inland Empire League this season.

“At this point in the season you don’t change strategy a lot, so we just have to execute to win,” Vikings coach Karla Mitchell said.

Lewiston was up 11-8 in the first game, but the Vikings went on a 7-1 run to win it behind a kill and two aces from Janke. The Vikings were more dominant in the second game when Lewiston ran into serving problems and was unable to rally consistently.

“We’ve always hung with them, but we made too many service errors tonight to beat a team like Coeur d’Alene,” Lewiston coach Laura Horton said.

The Bengals (11-9) must now win Thursday’s 5:30 p.m. losers’ bracket game at Post Falls High against Lake City and then defeat the loser of the 7:30 title game to make it to a playoff game at Grangeville to get to state.

“We played well, but we couldn’t put them away so we have to get ready now to win the losers’ bracket,” Horton said.

In Sandpoint, the Bulldogs got 11 kills from Mandy Ringhand in tripping the mistake-prone Timberwolves. Lake City got four kills from Alison Asher, but made too many unforced errors to stick with Sandpoint.

The championship game will give the Vikings an opportunity to avenge last week’s loss to Sandpoint - their only IEL defeat of the season.

The late-game serving of Andrea Thomas and Marisa Swank allowed Moscow (11-11, 5-5) to beat visiting Bonners Ferry 15-10, 15-10 and sew up third place in the Intermountain League.

Danna Wilder added eight kills and six digs for the Bears, who open the A-2 District II tournament at home Thursday against No. 6 Lakeland. Bonners (4-15, 3-7) tied Priest River for fourth place and will open district against the Spartans. Both district openers are loser-out.

Second-place Kellogg (15-5, 7-3) ended league with a 15-10, 16-14 road win over Lakeland (8-14, 2-8) at Rathdrum. Amy Lemon had 10 kills and Casidy Beamis 11 aces for the Wildcats, who have a district bye until Saturday. Jamie Harwood had eight digs for Lakeland, which served for the second game after trailing 11-2.

Girls soccer playoffs

Little separated fourth-place Moscow and fifth-place Lake City all year. In a district tournament opener between the two, one slip after 86 minutes spelled the difference.

Anna Moseley’s goal in the second overtime helped visiting LC (9-6-2) eliminate the Bears 3-1. Goalkeeper Mariah Talbott of Moscow (8-5-3) stopped the initial shot, but the ball slipped away toward Moseley.

Katie Brunn added an insurance goal 1 minute later for the Timberwolves, who play at top-seeded Coeur d’Alene (15-4-1) at 4 p.m. Thursday.

Also Thursday at 4, No. 2 Sandpoint (13-3-2) will host Lewiston (9-3-3), which eliminated visiting Lakeland 3-1 behind second-half goals by Carmen Zobel and Nicole Havens. Cara Barnes scored at 35 minutes for the Hawks (4-11-0).