CdA Charter grabs third place
CALDWELL, Idaho – Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy placed third at the State 1A boys basketball tournament Saturday to complete the most important road trip in the program’s four-year history.
And, like all great road trips, it seemed each of the Panthers’ players took turns driving the team to its 63-61 overtime victory over Cascade at Caldwell High School.
“With everything we’ve done with the program in the last two years, it has been an unbelievable ride,” Coeur d’Alene Charter coach Brian Childs told enraptured Panthers fans after the intense final-game win.
“This was an incredible finish. I want to thank all the fans and the parents of the players who came all the way down for the tournament.”
The Panthers and their supporters traveled nearly seven hours to reach the state tournament in Southwest Idaho, but the longest part of the trip may have been the 4-minute overtime Coeur d’Alene Charter endured a wild fourth-quarter finish.
“That’s not exactly how we would have drawn up the win,” Childs said after sharing some emotional embraces with his players.
It looked as if the Panthers (22-4) would survive without dramatics after David Baker dumped in two free throws with 13.2 seconds left in regulation to give his team a five-point lead.
But Cascade’s 6-foot-1 junior post, Anthony Beskoon, nailed a 3-point goal with 7.8 seconds left, and teammate Newt Basey put in a layup after swiping the ensuing inbounds pass by Chris Shaw to send the game into overtime tied at 52.
Guess they don’t call them the Ramblers for nothing.
“(Basey) for them is a heck of a player,” Childs said. “But when it looked like (the Ramblers) had the momentum, we came out and got the job done.”
The Panthers’ effort could stand as a tribute to the senior nucleus that had been swapping the lead role throughout the tournament.
Quietly, Michael Gleixner held Cascade at arm’s length with five defensive rebounds and two clutch steals during regulation.
“Michael is the kind of guy who gets lost in the shuffle,” Childs said. “He doesn’t score a lot of points, but whenever he’s on the floor we play better.”
Post Austin Folnagy got the stretch run started with a game-tying layup 65 seconds into the extra period. He scored nine points and had four huge offensive rebounds.
Baker scored to put Coeur d’Alene Charter back in front, 56-54. He finished with 17 points.
Josiah Menzies rattled in a clutch 3-pointer with 1 minute, 8 seconds left to push the Panthers to their pivotal 59-56 advantage. Menzies, who jumped around like he was standing on hot coals after blasting the 3-pointer, logged a team-high 20 points.
“The way we finished showed our maturity and the mental toughness of our seniors when we could have easily folded in overtime,” Childs said.
The most fitting component of the final 2 minutes of Coeur d’Alene Charter’s first visit to the state tournament was Shaw, who started the week with a 102-degree temperature and had missed Friday’s semifinal loss to Greenleaf Friends Academy after a trip to the hospital.
Shaw canned two double-bonus foul shots with 9.6 seconds left to stretch the Panthers’ lead to five points.
Shaw was obviously running on fumes and whatever liquids the coaching staff pumped into him at every opportunity – they did everything but throw a cup at him as if he were a marathon runner as he moved the ball up the floor
They needed every one of Shaw’s 17 points as Cascade’s Nathan Silva fired in a 3-pointer with 2.3 seconds left.
“I think we were running on emotion,” Childs said, adding that Shaw’s participation in the finale wasn’t locked in until the morning shootaround. “When the kids found out Chris was playing, it got them up and they got it done.”