Bears win region, head to state

The Moscow Bears are headed to the state boys basketball tournament.

A decided height advantage over a short-handed Post Falls team propelled the top-seeded Bears to a 71-56 win over the No. 2 Trojans in the championship game of the 4A Region 1 tournament at Lake City High School on Saturday.

Moscow’s win gives the Bears (15-7) a berth in the state tournament beginning March 2 at Albertson College in Caldwell.

Post Falls (13-9) still has a shot at making it to state. The Trojans will host No. 3 seed Sandpoint (9-13) Tuesday at 7 at Post Falls in a second loser-out contest. The winner of that game will travel to Grangeville Saturday to face the third-place finisher from District 3 for a state berth. That game is set for 3:30. Sandpoint kept its season alive with a 79-56 win over No. 4 seed Lakeland (6-15) in the earlier loser-out game.

Moscow 71, Post Falls 56

The job for Moscow’s big men was made a bit easier as Post Falls’ two biggest men were not in uniform – 6-foot-5 starting post Kyle Turpin is still nursing a sore ankle and 6-foot-7 Zach Nordmeyer is out due to a rule violation.

The result was a decided advantage on the boards for the Bears.

“I thought limiting their shot opportunities and rebounding were the keys,” Moscow coach Lance Hansen said. “That definitely hurt them (the loss of Turpin and Nordmeyer). Kyle is real athletic and gets to the boards.”

For the second consecutive night, the Bears came out quickly. Moscow shot 70 percent from the field in the first quarter to take a 17-14 lead and nearly duplicated that effort in the second quarter by shooting 67 percent.

But Post Falls kept the defensive pressure on the Bears and timely 3-pointers by Spencer Pingel, Zach Deines, and Dan Hamilton brought the Trojans to within one (22-21) with 4:44 left in the first half.

But Moscow closed the second quarter with a 11-2 run to take a 33-23 halftime lead.

The Trojans clawed back to within six at 42-36 midway through the third quarter, but then a string of turnovers and the inside play of Cody Line gave Moscow a 48-36 lead and some breathing room.

Post Falls would again close to 51-47 on back-to-back 3-pointers by Joe Bodman, but the Bears scored the next seven points to put the game out of reach. Post Falls was forced to foul in the waning moments and Moscow responded, hitting 6 of 6 free throws.

Moscow was led in scoring by Line’s 16 and junior Paul Wimer’s 15.

Sandpoint 79, Lakeland 56

The Bulldogs lived to play another day with a convincing victory over the Hawks.

And for the second straight night, a slow start may have cost the Hawks. Lakeland made just 5 of 13 field-goal attempts in the first quarter and Sandpoint used that slump and 10 Brian Shultz first-quarter points to gain a 20-8 lead.

Lakeland scored the last five points of the quarter to make it 20-13, but the Bulldogs steadily pulled away and led 41-25 at halftime. The Hawks never got closer than 12 points after that.

Shultz finished with 22 points for Sandpoint, while Bubba Bartlett topped Moscow with 24 points.