CHS impresses at state tourney

Coeur d’Alene High boys basketball coach Kent Leiss would have lost a bet predicting how his team would fare this year.

He just wanted his team to qualify for state. To play for a state championship was beyond his wildest imagination before the season started.

“I thought we’d be competitive, but I wouldn’t have bet anybody that we would have been playing for the state championship,” said Leiss, whose team ended with a 22-3 record.

The Vikings, who finished ranked No. 1 in the final poll, led 22-21 at halftime over Vallivue last Saturday at the Idaho Center in Nampa. But the well-rounded Falcons overwhelmed Coeur d’Alene in the second half to capture the state title 67-45.

CHS, which started just one player over 6 feet all year, couldn’t contain taller Vallivue as the Vikings had against Madison and Eagle in their first two games.

“It’s not a good feeling to go down like that, but overall I thought our kids did a great job,” Leiss said. “They exceeded the expectations I had coming into the season.”

Senior guards Nate Clinton and Andrew Prohaska carried the Vikings throughout the season. The three-year starters were named the Inland Empire League’s co-players of the year.

The 5-7 Clinton was the offensive force while the 5-9 Prohaska spearheaded the defense.

If it wasn’t for Clinton in the first half Saturday, the Vikings wouldn’t have had a chance. He scored 19 of the Viks’ 22 points. Vallivue clamped down on him in the second half, but he finished with a game-high 27.

Clinton echoed his coach about season expectations.

“At the beginning of the season, I didn’t know how we’d do,” Clinton said. “If someone told me that we’d be in the state championship game I would have just laughed at them. Just getting here was amazing.”

Still, Clinton, who carried the second-place trophy in his hands to the locker room, said he wasn’t satisfied finishing runner-up.

“I thought we were going to come out harder in the second half because we’re usually a second-half team, but we didn’t show up and play,” Clinton said. “It’s very disappointing. You always want to win and I feel like we should have won, could have won.

“Once we won a couple of games (at state), I knew that we had a real good shot. We had a great opportunity to win, but they just came out and played better than us.”

Prohaska said the difference between this year’s team and the one that lost in the fourth-place game and finished sixth last year was measurable. This year’s team was focused and had better chemistry, Prohaska said.

Opposing coaches at the state tourney were impressed with CHS.

The Viks defeated Madison 52-44 in opening-round play Thursday. Madison coach Bill Hawkins thought at that point CHS could advance to the title game.

“Their energy gives them a chance,” Hawkins said. “I’ve been around a while and I do think they have a chance and it’s not just because they beat us. The biggest thing that they lack, as everyone knows, is size. But I’ll tell you what, this right here (pointing to his heart) has a lot of size. People don’t understand that until you play them. The bottom line is they give you some fits because of how well they play together.”

Eagle coach Tom Seifert, whose team fell 65-57 to the Viks in the semifinals, thought the smaller Viks bottled up his team.

“We thought we had a chance to beat them. But that’s what the state tournament does. We begged our kids to get the ball inside. That didn’t happen. But I’ll tell you what, Coeur d’Alene is quick, they get things done. When we did get it inside our big guys tried to dribble, and they jumped all over that. That’s a heckuva defensive job that Coeur d’Alene threw at us.”

Vallivue coach Mike Chatterton thought the Viks were a special team.

“They keep playing hard, they keep coming at you,” Chatterton said. “They’re well coached. They play basketball the right way.”

The Viks also earned much respect from Leiss.

“They were a fun group to coach,” he said. “They played hard and they practiced hard. They showed a lot of heart. Going into every game with one kid over 6 feet tall and winning 22 games … we got about as much as we could out of our ability.”

Leiss has a rebuilding job ahead. CHS will lose eight seniors, including all of its starters. Just two players, sophomores Devon Austin and Connor Williams, will return with varsity experience.

“We won’t have a senior next year unless somebody moves in or something,” Leiss said. “We’ll be mainly juniors and sophomores.”

Despite the fact that CHS will be young, Leiss said next year’s team will be better in one area.

“I think we’re going to be a better shooting team without question,” Leiss said. “Going into next year, we’ll probably have the least amount of returning players of the four 5A teams in our league. So we have a lot of our work cut out for us in the off-season to try to bounce back and get to this level.”