Vikings earn state berth in victory
The Coeur d’Alene High girls basketball team returned to its uptempo style and Lake City got caught in the middle Thursday.
If there were any doubts which team was better prior to the deciding game of the 5A Region I best-of-3 series, none remain after the Vikings sailed past the Timberwolves 47-30 and will likely keep floating to state.
Coeur d’Alene (19-4) will take on District IV-V-VI runner-up Twin Falls (20-4) at 12:15 p.m. PST Thursday when the state tourney opens at the Idaho Center in Nampa.
Lake City (14-9) can still join the Viks at state. The T-Wolves will take on Boise (20-4), the District III fourth-place team, in a play-in game Saturday afternoon at Craigmont. Tipoff is at 3:30.
The sixth game between the city rivals turned out to be CdA’s best.
LC cut into CdA’s 25-17 halftime lead early in the third quarter, pulling within 25-22. But the T-Wolves, who committed 13 turnovers in the first half, added six more turnovers in the third period, and the Viks made the mistakes hurt.
Jenna Griffitts, CdA’s only senior, got loose for eight of her game-high 16 points moments later and the Viks took a 37-25 lead into the fourth.
For seemingly the final 4 minutes of the fourth period, the Viks put on a ballhandling/passing clinic as they ran time off the clock. As the clock ticked under a minute to play, much of the estimated crowd of 1,100 at Elmer Jordan Court stood and cheered appreciatively.
“We finally got the tempo where we wanted it and it made a big difference,” said CdA first-year coach Dale Poffenroth, who inherited a team coming off a 2-19 season. “It took six games (against LC) to get there.”
LC coach Darren Taylor didn’t have to look at the statistical sheet to know what tripped up his team.
“They dictated the tempo and they got us going faster than we wanted to go,” Taylor said. “We had them on the ropes at our court and let them off the hook (Tuesday). Maybe it’s hard for high school kids to come back from something like that. That’s just excuses. You’ve got to tip your hat to them. They played so hard. I thought their pressure on the ball was the difference.”
CdA sophomore forward Jenna DeLong, who was in game-long foul trouble on Tuesday, bounced back Thursday. She had just nine points, but her minutes on the court were what CdA needed most.
Vik sophomore guard Lindsey Stark added 12 points and freshman guard Ali Johnson had 10. Griffitts led with 10 rebounds.
DeLong sensed the Viks would play well during the pregame talk in the locker room.
“The whole spiel from Poff before the game was ‘have fun’,” DeLong said. “That’s all it was. We all just looked at him and smiled. We realized we didn’t have to have so much weight on our backs. We went out and had fun and look what happened.”