Lakeland under radar at State 4A

Lakeland High girls basketball coach Steve Seymour is taking a team to state for an eighth straight year and third consecutive season since the Rathdrum school moved up to 4A.

Seymour is taking his first team to state with a less than .500 record. While the journey has had more downs than ups at times this year, he said the reward of qualifying for state is just as satisfying, if not more pleasing, than any other season.

The Hawks (10-11) open play today against Hillcrest (17-8) of Idaho Falls at Timberline High School in Boise. Tipoff is at 12:15 p.m. PST.

Lakeland returned the least amount of experience and size of any of the teams in the recent run of state appearances.

“Going into the season you want to look at the big picture and realize that Coeur d’Alene, Lake City and Post Falls are all very good,” Seymour said of going 0-6 against those Inland Empire League 5A teams. “We knew there was a chance this team could take some lumps.”

Making things difficult initially was the fact that Lakeland opened with three straight losses to 3A Intermountain League teams, including state qualifiers Kellogg and Bonners Ferry. Add in the mix the eventual losses to the IEL’s power teams and it was obvious the Hawks were fighting to stay within eyesight of the .500 mark.

Lakeland played perhaps its best half of the season against Post Falls in late January, taking a 32-17 lead into halftime. But Post Falls rallied for a 48-45 win as the Hawks slipped to a season-worst 6-11.

“It was tough on the kids in a couple of those games,” Seymour said. “I thought the girls did a good job of keeping it in perspective – keeping the spirits up and realizing it’s a long season.”

Lakeland finished the regular season with wins over Moscow and Lewiston before beating Moscow twice, including a 55-54 win in overtime, to capture the Region I championship.

“We just wanted to improve and try to measure where we are at the end of the year compared to where we started,” Seymour said. “I’m not going to say we played great against Coeur d’Alene and Lake City. But it’s reassuring that we’re probably not going to play against someone better than we’ve seen (at state).”

The Hawks won’t be mentioned as a state title contender. That’s just fine with Seymour. He only has to look back to last year to point out that Moscow took a less than .500 record to state and ended up playing for a title.

“We talked about Moscow and the fact that they were a very good team that didn’t have a very good record going to state,” Seymour said. “People overlooked them and obviously they had a great state tournament run. A lot of things are going well for us at the right time.”