A milestone win

The Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy boys basketball team is charting new territory.

The Panthers will play in their first 1A District I championship game after they posted their first postseason win Wednesday.

Coeur d’Alene Charter scored early and often as the second-seeded Panthers cruised past No. 3 Kootenai 70-50 in the second of two games at Lakeland High School.

In the opener, top-seeded Clark Fork shook off an uncharacteristically poor first half to rally past fourth-seeded Wallace 39-30.

Coeur d’Alene Charter (18-3) will meet Clark Fork (14-6) at 7:30 p.m. Friday to decide the first of two state berths. Kootenai (11-7) and Wallace (11-11) meet at 6 in a loser-out game.

CdA Charter 70, Kootenai 50: Panthers coach Brian Childs was braced for a little of the worst, but hopeful for anything positive.

The Panthers, in their fourth year in the North Star League, gave their second-year coach plenty to smile about as they opened fast and never had any extended dry spells.

Charter used a 10-0 spurt, capped by a layup in transition by Michael Gleixner, to open a 15-4 lead. The Panthers had another 10-0 run in the second quarter on their way to a 36-16 lead at halftime.

“I liked the fact that we got off to a good start,” Childs said. “I was a little concerned (because) this is the first time we’ve ever been in this kind of a game with this high of a seed. I was worried about the nerves, but we came out and got after it right on the jump.”

Kootenai made a brief run in the third quarter. But other than that, the only thing that slowed down the Panthers at times were themselves. They committed 31 turnovers.

Childs can live with most of those, though.

“We kind of play that way,” Childs said. “While we’re a senior-laden team, we don’t have a lot of basketball experience. Some of these kids didn’t play until their freshman year and a couple of them didn’t play until last year. We try to make up for that by forcing the issue, forcing the tempo. We know we’re going to turn it over a little bit, but we hope we’re going to turn them (their opponents) over a little more and get some baskets in transition to try to negate some of that experience that we lack.”

Leading the Panthers’ attack was senior point guard Chris Shaw. He scored all of his game-high 23 points in the final three quarters, and 17 came at the free-throw line. He made 17 of 22 foul shots.

Shaw is just in his second year playing in high school.

“Chris is what makes us go,” Childs said. “He’s done it all year. He gets to the basket, he gets his teammates involved, he knows when to push it and when to pull it (out). It was nice to see him step up with some leadership and settle the guys down.”

Senior post Austin Folgany provided a big offensive spark in the first half for Charter. He scored 10 of his 13 points in the first half, including two three-point plays.

Kootenai didn’t back down in the second half. The Warriors cut the lead to 11 points twice in the third quarter. Cody Kraack and Anthony Cranford combined to score 17 of the Warriors’ 22 points in the period.

But Kootenai didn’t have anything left to chase the Panthers in the fourth quarter. Charter seemed to catch a second wind early in the final quarter and ably thwarted off the Warriors’ comeback hopes.

Cranford led Kootenai with 17 points. David Baker had 11 points and 10 rebounds to assist Shaw and Folgany.

Clark Fork 39, Wallace 30: Wampus Cats coach Brian Powell was more than a little concerned at halftime.

After all, he had watched his league championship team score just 13 points and commit 16 turnovers in the first half.

“There was a sense of urgency at halftime. That was the worst half we had played all year,” Powell said.

Things got worse before they got better. Marcus Matile made a 3-pointer to put Wallace ahead 26-15 at the 6:15 mark of the third quarter.

But the Wampus Cats proceeded to go on a 17-0 run that spilled into the fourth quarter.

Wallace, meanwhile, missed its next 11 shots and didn’t score again until Jordan Beehner made a difficult 8-footer in the key with a hand in his face with 3:53 left in the game. The Miners made just 1 of 14 shots in the fourth quarter.

“We played better defense and we stopped turning the ball over,” Powell said of the second half. “That was huge, and a couple of guys just stepped up and played better.”

Playing especially big and tall was sophomore post Jared Broggi, a wide body at 6-foot-5.

Broggi scored nine of his game-high 15 points in the third quarter. He ended up making all six of his shots from the field.