Bonners Ferry wins district, earns state bid

RATHDRUM – In three previous years, the Bonners Ferry girls basketball team came up short in the district title game and had to try to bounce back the next night to earn a state berth.

Finally, the Badgers decided to take the easier road to state – albeit they didn’t make it easy on their coach – as top-seeded Bonners Ferry survived a first-half scoring drought and frantic final 2 minutes to hold off No. 2 Timberlake 38-35 in the 3A District I-II championship game Friday at Lakeland High School.

Bonners Ferry (15-5) advances to state, Thursday through Feb. 21 at Skyview High School in Nampa. The Badgers will face the Weiser (13-10)/Wendell (17-7) winner in the first round. Those teams meet in a play-in game today.

Timberlake (15-6), which is seeking its first state berth since the Spirit Lake school opened in 1998, can still earn a trip. The Tigers take on third-seeded Priest River (9-11) tonight at 7 with the winner joining the Badgers in Nampa.

Priest River stayed alive by eliminating St. Maries (10-13) 52-31.

Bonners Ferry 38, Timberlake 35: This game was dominated by stretches of ugly play. Both teams took turns struggling on offense. Or was it good defense? Hard to tell.

A driving basket by Alicia Hedrick gave the Badgers a 33-23 lead with 2:19 remaining, and Bonners Ferry just had to play smart to finish the game.

The problem was, the Tigers didn’t quit. They scored eight unanswered points to pull within 33-31 with 39 seconds left.

Hedrick made four free throws in the next 17 seconds, allowing BF to escape.

Tigers freshman Kara Wenstrom made a 45-footer at the buzzer.

“Luckily Cassie (Thompson) was in just enough foul trouble to not play most of the game,” BF coach Travis Hinthorn said of Timberlake’s standout 6-foot post.

Thompson sat out the final 5:44 of the first half in foul trouble, sat out 4:44 of the third quarter again and then picked up her fourth foul 18 seconds into the final period and didn’t re-enter until the 4:56 mark. She still managed to score a game-high 16 points, grab 10 rebounds and block two shots.

BF scored just two points in the second quarter despite Thompson sitting out the majority of the period.

“I thought we’d be the more experienced team being seniors and juniors,” Hinthorn said. “But in the first half we were a little shell shocked, and I have no idea why.”

The Badgers found enough poise in the end to hold off the Tigers. Hedrick led BF with 10 points and Ashley Winkelseth led a dominating effort on the boards with 13.

Winkelseth said she had a talk with her team at halftime.

“At halftime I thought we had lost it,” Winkelseth said. “I gave a good talk to my girls. I told them we’ve gotten this far as a team and we can make it as a team. We fell apart (in the second quarter).”

Timberlake coach Matt Miller was pleased his team made a run late.

“We showed a lot of heart and came back and made a couple of buckets,” Miller said. “We were scoreless there for quite a while. Foul trouble was big for us and rebounding killed us. That was ultimately the biggest thing. We were down 10 and could have went south. We put ourselves in position to win the game.”

Priest River 52, St. Maries 31: Taylor Stewart had 15 points and seven assists and Melissa Hopkins had 14 points and 11 rebounds as the Spartans stayed alive.

All-Intermountain League team: Stewart was named the league’s most valuable player.

Joining her on the all-league team were teammates Hopkins and Jamie Koch; Thompson, Kacie Wenstrom and Caitlyn Nichols of Timberlake; Karly Truscott of St. Maries; and Hedrick, Winkelseth and Erin Hiatt of BF.

Miller was named coach of the year.