Defense Carries Kellogg Over Bonners To State
Kellogg’s boys basketball team isn’t flashy, tall or overly quick. Fortunately for the Wildcats, though, they are in every sense of the word, a team.
By using an impressive display of defense and freethrow shooting to beat Bonners Ferry 52-39 Saturday, they can also be described as a team that is going to the A-2 State tournament. Kellogg earned the berth with the win at Lake City High School in the second-place game of the District I-II boys tournament.
“We’ve got a great group of kids,” Kellogg coach Tony Kerfoot said. “We don’t dominate many aspects of the game but they play hard.”
Kellogg (15-8) plays District IV champion Jerome in its opening game at state. The game starts at 7 p.m. Thursday at Meridian High School.
The key to Kellogg’s win might have been that it slowed Bonners Ferry standout Adam Hiatt. The Wildcats used a box-and-one defense that kept Hiatt continuously guarded throughout the game. Hiatt still managed to score 14 points to lead the Badgers.
“It’s totally cheap when they play me like that,” said a frustrated Hiatt. “Even when I came off a screen they had a double team on me right away.”
While dominating the defensive end, Kellogg did most of its offensive damage from the free-throw line. The Wildcats shot just 14 of 30 from the field, but scored 20 points from the line.
Kellogg was paced by 12 points from Casey Marek, but the most important Wildcat may have been Cory Lewis. Lewis drew the task of guarding Hiatt for most of the game, and kept him from getting an open look.
“We knew Hiatt could only work so hard, because they’ve played four games in the last five days,” Kerfoot said. “Cory Lewis did a great job on him defensively.”
The fatigue of the Badgers was evident in the second half as Kellogg went on a 15-4 run in the third quarter. The Wildcats put the game away at the line with eight free throws in the fourth quarter as Bonners Ferry was forced to foul to stop the clock.
“The kids wanted to get to state awfully bad, and we played the kind of defense we needed to get there,” Kerfoot said.
The Badgers, who were picked by many at the beginning of the year as the team to beat in the Intermountain League, finished the season with 13 wins and nine losses.
“It’s a big-time disappointment to finish the year this way,” Hiatt said. “We had high expectations this year, but we didn’t mature enough to reach them.”
Kellogg 52, Boners Ferry 39
Kellogg 7 20 15 10 - 52
Bonners Ferry 9 13 4 13 - 39
Kellogg - Lewis 2, Mercado 5, Corkill 11, C. Marek 12, Rice 4, Carlson 9, H. Marek 9.
Bonners Ferry - Bahe 9, Hiatt 14, Meeker 7, Ashby 5, Hurst 2, Robertson 2.