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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

It’s a learning process


Lake City's Nick Fromm gets off a shot over a Madison defender.
 (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)

The Madison High boys basketball team returned essentially three starters off a team that finished runner-up at the State 4A tournament a year ago.

Lake City returned one starter off a team that lost a play-in game for a 5A state berth and finished with a 10-13 record.

It was obvious which team was ready to start the 2006-07 season Friday as the visiting Bobcats of Rexburg topped the Timberwolves 58-49 in a non-league game.

“It was a very experienced team against a team that wasn’t very experienced – and we made some inexperienced turnovers and missed a lot of easy shots in the third quarter,” LC coach Jim Thacker said.

It was the stretch that Thacker alluded to late in the third period that allowed Madison to take a 39-33 lead into the final quarter – an advantage the Bobcats extended in the final 4 minutes.

Madison used a variety of defenses in the second half to pull away after a tightly contested opening half.

LC led 14-13 after the first quarter despite committing seven turnovers.

After Madison took an 18-14 lead in the early moments of the second, LC fought back to take its biggest lead at 25-22 when senior Ty Stoddard scored in transition off a nice pass from sophomore point guard Jason Wheelock with 2:08 to go before halftime.

But LC wouldn’t score the rest of the half, and a putback by 6-foot-4 post/wing/guard Matt Hansen allowed the Bobcats to take a 27-25 lead into halftime.

The veteran-led Bobcats slowly took control in the second half.

“They put pressure on us and we didn’t have people coming to the ball, and we held the ball too long,” Thacker said of his team’s second-half troubles. “It was just inexperience, it really was.”

Hansen, who hit an assortment of jumpers from outside and inside the arc along with posting up, scored a game-high 25 points, 16 coming in the first half. Although he played as many minutes if not more than some starters last year, he was Madison’s sixth man.

He will be counted on to play a big role in Madison’s first year in 5A. The Bobcats are picked to be the top team in the East.

“They’ve got a nice team,” Thacker said. “They’re a lot more organized than we are at this point in time because they’ve been to state before. It was just a matter of them having a little more savvy than we had. I’d love to be able to play them again in the middle of the year when we’ve got a little more experience and we could measure ourselves a little bit better. This wasn’t a real good measuring stick.”

Madison coach Bill Hawkins thought that switching up defenses in the third quarter was a key.

“That kind of took their rhythm away a little bit,” Hawkins said. “They were kind of going basket for basket with us for a while and that helped us.”

Hawkins was impressed with LC.

“I have nothing but good to say about Lake City,” Hawkins said. “I thought they did some really, really good things. They hurt us with their back cuts in the first half. For their first game I thought they played with a lot of energy and executed very well.”

Thacker said that at one point in the third quarter Wheelock, who is making the jump from the freshman team to varsity this year, had to use a garbage can near the bench.

“Jason came out and he was over there heaving his cookies in the trash barrel in the third quarter,” Thacker said. “He was sicker than a dog. It’s just flat nerves. It was a little nerve-wracking for some of those guys.”

Overall, Thacker said his team can build on its opener.

“I still like this team,” Thacker said. “We could be a very good team. It’s just going to take a few games here to get ourselves some confidence and to find out what we can do and who our go-to people are.”

Stoddard, LC’s lone returning starter, led with 22 points. Wheelock had nine assists.