Shaw leads Panthers to state tournament

Winning a boys basketball district title is never a small thing.

Winning the first district title in your school’s history is always a huge thing.

The Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy Panthers, in the program’s fourth year, pulled off the feat Friday with a 43-36 victory over Clark Fork in the championship game of the 1A District I tournament at Lakeland High School in Rathdrum.

CdA Charter (19-3) earned itself a berth in the 1A state tournament and will open Wednesday at 5:15 p.m. PST at Caldwell High School against District IV fourth-place Murtaugh (13-9).

Clark Fork remains alive and faces Kootenai, which got 13 points from senior post Anthony Cranford and survived with a 46-44 win over Wallace in a loser-out prelim. The Wampus Cats (14-7) and Miners (12-11) square off at Lakeland today at 4 p.m. with another state berth on the line.

Charter senior point guard Chris Shaw, who had a game-high 20 points, said the win may go a long way to shattering the bookworm banter the Panthers have had to endure.

“It’s the fourth year of the program, I believe, so it’s pretty good stuff – especially for guys like us,” Shaw said. “People perceive us as kind of an academic school, but we’ve got this going, too.

“It shows another side of the school. I think we’ve got a good chance (at state), but I don’t know – we’ll see what happens, because none of these guys have ever done anything like this before, so it’ll be interesting.”

Charter, despite committing 10 turnovers and shooting just 30 percent in the first half, forced 13 Wampus Cat miscues and held Clark Fork to just 13 percent shooting from the field – including a 0-for-11 goose egg in a scoreless second quarter.

With a 21-8 lead at the half, it appeared the Panthers had things well in hand, but the Cats and senior point guard Mike Martin weren’t ready to lie down just yet.

Down 31-18 at the end of three, Clark Fork went on a 13-4 run and got as close as four at 35-31 with 2:30 to play.

But the Cats turned the ball over three times down the stretch and Charter hit enough of its free throws to put it away.

Panthers coach Brian Childs, positively beaming as his charges cut down the nets, described the moment.

“I’m just so proud of our guys,” Childs said. “They’ve worked so hard and sacrificed the last few years – we played a lot during the summer to prepare for this.

“It’s nice to see the hard work pay off for them.”

As for the game-in-the-bag, then not-so-much-in-the-bag second half, Childs credited the Cats.

“Two evenly matched teams – and I have a lot of respect for (Clark Fork coach) Brian (Powell) and the way his kids play,” Childs said. “That’s an awfully good team, and we knew they couldn’t continue that cold shooting and they were going to start making shots sometime.

“We were kind of able to weather the storm and we had some great senior leadership – Chris Shaw was unbelievable, and when we needed it, he delivered tonight.”

Powell, who had just finished telling his team to shake this one off and come out hard against Kootenai, said taking two of four quarters off was an all-too-familiar scenario.

“I think our guys were just tight and didn’t put the ball in the hole,” Powell said. “We didn’t take a lot of shots and we turned the ball over too much.

“We came in with the idea that we weren’t going to do that, but it happened anyway – we’ve had that problem all year.”

Wallace, which finishes its season 11-12, was led by junior post Darrick Holmquist with 11 points.