CdA in title game again
NAMPA, Idaho – The Coeur d’Alene High girls basketball team will play in the State 5A championship game for a third straight year.
It won’t be an all-North Idaho showdown, though.
Coeur d’Alene, state runner-up the past two years, overwhelmed Twin Falls 63-48 while Post Falls never got untracked against Vallivue 61-50 in semifinals Friday at the Idaho Center.
Second-ranked Coeur d’Alene (21-3) and No. 3 Vallivue (21-4) meet in the title game tonight at 7 PST. Post Falls (20-4) takes on Twin Falls (18-6) to decide third place this morning at 10 at Nampa High School.
CdA 63, Twin Falls 48: The Vikings used a 17-2 run over the final 3 minutes, 28 seconds of the second quarter for a 39-21 halftime lead.
In the second half, CdA coach Dale Poffenroth substituted with a purpose. He wants his players to be as fresh as possible tonight. Sophomore Amanda Buttrey, for example, who didn’t play in the Vikings’ opener, played 10:31 and freshman starting post Carli Rosenthal sat most of the final two quarters.
“We were trying to rest as many bodies as we could,” Poffenroth said. “At this point it doesn’t matter whether you win by one or 100 – you’ve just got to win. Ali (Johnson) played 32 minutes yesterday and we tried to get her out. Rosenthal is a big kid, a big body. It’s harder for her to come back than some of the other kids.”
The result was Twin Falls chipped away at CdA’s lead in the third quarter. A jumper by Devan Matkin pulled the Bruins within 44-37 with 1:27 to go before the fourth period.
Even with the different combinations in the fourth, CdA managed to build the lead to 15 points.
CdA shot much better than it did in its state opener, especially from 3-point range. Kama Griffitts, who was 1 of 15 overall and 0 for 4 on 3-pointers Thursday, made 5 of 7 3-pointers to finish with a team-high 18 points in the semifinal. She also had nine rebounds and three assists.
“I was a lot more confident tonight than I was obviously yesterday,” Griffitts said. “My teammates made me a lot more confident in myself to shoot the ball and tell me how to fix it.”
Griffitts said teammate Deanna Dotts told her to focus on a spot on the rim.
“Thanks to Deanna Dotts,” Griffitts said. “She’s the momma hen.”
Poffenroth expects his team to continue to play solid defense.
“The key is we’ve just got to come out and play the way we played against Centennial and part of this game, too,” Poffenroth said. “We’ve got to come out and really play hard and hope that we have enough conditioning.”
CdA locked up a trophy for a fourth straight year under Poffenroth.
Vallivue 61, Post Falls 50: There was a reason why Trojans coach Chris Johnson didn’t recognize his team.
“That was, by far, the worst performance we’ve had all year,” Johnson said. “I can’t think of anything even remotely close to the way that game played.”
The Trojans were a step slow. The Falcons recovered seemingly all loose balls, and Post Falls never discovered a rhythm on offense.
Kandice McArthur made a 3-pointer that gave Post Falls its lone lead at 11-9 with 5:12 remaining in the second quarter. Vallivue closed the half on an 11-4 spurt.
Post Falls closed within 22-20 in the opening moments of the third quarter, but that proved to be just a tease.
Devyn Christensen made three 3-pointers from NBA range in the first half and finished with a game-high 22 points. She hit the first shot of the game, and Johnson knew it was a bad sign.
“We knew she is the real deal,” he said. “We knew she was going to get her points and we did some different things to try to slow her down. We felt even then if we were just scoring normally we’d be OK. She was getting hers and we weren’t getting ours.”
Vallivue made 16 of 18 free throws in the final 3:50. The Falcons finished 29 of 37 at the foul line.
“(Missed) free throws, (missed) layins, fumbled balls. There wasn’t much going right for us most of the game,” Johnson said.
Post Falls’ three leading scorers had off-shooting games. Katelyn Loper, Jenny McVeigh and Jordan Schoening combined to make just 8 of 28 shots from the field. Post Denise Schmidt led with 11 points.
Johnson didn’t see the flat effort coming.
“The girls were loose all day. We had a great shootaround this morning,” he said. “I give Vallivue a lot of credit. They played well, but some of the things we did are just kind of unexplainable. The kids are really hurt. It wasn’t from a lack of effort. It just seemed like everything was just not in sync.”