North Idaho’s defense keys win over Dixie State

Defense provided the early cushion and defense put an exclamation point on the end for the North Idaho College men’s basketball team Saturday.

And in between, the Cardinals finally found a way to slow down Dixie State College’s 6-foot-5 wide-bodied Moleni Taukiuvea, who single handedly kept the Rebels within eyesight for a half before NIC left the visitors behind in an 81-62 Scenic West Athletic Conference game in front of a Christianson Gym crowd of 1,875.

Taukiuvea, a freshman from Salt Lake City, finished with a game-high 23 points. But 15 of those came in the first half when the Cardinals, who have some tall bodies but not much bulk on the bones, couldn’t stop him in the low post.

“We knew he was kind of a matchup problem because he’s pretty quick but he’s got that big, strong body,” NIC coach Jared Phay said. “At halftime Frank Clair said, ‘Somebody needs to step up and stop him.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you guard him in the second half?’ So he did a lot better job on him in the second half.”

Clair, a lean 6-6 sophomore, used his quickness to frustrate Taukiuvea. And NIC ran help frequently inside, forcing Taukiuvea, who made 6 of 8 shots in the first half, to make just 2 of 6 in the final 20 minutes. By making Taukiuvea work harder, the Cards tired him out.

“He did a heck of a job guarding him in the second half. He put him in locks,” 6-10 Cardinals post Darin Nagle said of Clair.

Clair didn’t take all the credit, though.

“He’s an undersized post and he’s pretty big, but I’ve got a little more quickness and I just tried to outsmart him,” Clair said. “We wanted to take away baseline and force him to the help. We’ve got big Darin down there and he blocked a few shots. We took him out of the game and forced everyone else to score.”

Only one other Rebel scored in double figures.

NIC (15-2, 5-1), meanwhile, spread the scoring around as four players reached double digits. Nagle led with 21 points, four blocked shots and four rebounds while Mac Hopson had 15 points, Clair added 13 off the bench and Keelan Donald chipped in 10. Clair also had a team-high seven rebounds.

The Cards used an 18-2 run sparked by defense to break from a 9-all tie in the first half. The Rebels (12-6, 3-3), who were coming off a big 84-70 win at home against College of Southern Idaho on Jan. 7, answered with a 12-0 spurt, cutting NIC’s lead to 27-23 with 4:45 to go before halftime.

Dixie State pulled within 41-38 at the 15:47 mark of the second half. But that’s as close as the Rebels would get as NIC built as much as a 21-point margin over the next 10 minutes.

“We had that defensive energy, and we had a little bit of a let up in the first half,” Phay said. “We can’t have those letups.

“When we get after it and guard we’ve got some pretty quick athletic guards and that makes it tough on the other team.”

The second half of conference play begins next weekend when teams starting playing doubleheaders at one site. NIC and CSI will go into the final leg of league play tied atop the standings. CSI defeated Salt Lake 101-96 in overtime Saturday.

NIC travels to Salt Lake next weekend. Before doing so, the Cards play at home Tuesday in the resumption of a suspended game with Community Colleges of Spokane. Admission is free.

•Freshman Rodney Stuckey scored 31 points and the Eastern Washington Eagles (6-10, 1-2) snapped a five-game losing streak with an 89-70 victory over the Portland State Vikings (7-9, 0-3) in Big Sky Conference play in Portland.

Paul Butorac added 16 points and five rebounds and the Eagles, who led by as many as 22 points to spoil the Vikings’ conference home opener.

Josh Neeley had 15 points to lead Portland State, which has lost three straight after a five-game winning streak.

•Drew Cardwell scored 24 and Josh Vanlandingham added 17 points to lead the Pacific Lutheran Lutes (3-12, 2-4) to an 81-72 win over the Whitworth Pirates (9-6, 3-3) in Tacoma.

Whitworth’s George Tucker tied for game-high honors with 24 points, while Kevin Hasenfus added 17 points and eight rebounds.

•Humberto Perez tossed in 16 points to lead a balanced scoring attack and the Community Colleges of Spokane Sasquatch (12-3, 2-0) rolled to a 73-53 road win over the Wenatchee Valley Knights (1-14, 0-2) in Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges play.

Jordan Hammond chipped in with 14 points and five rebounds for CC Spokane. Erik Bell had 13 points and five rebounds and Jeremy Mangum tallied 11 points and six assists for the Sasquatch.