Illinois all-stars' team game edges Iowa

By Dan Angell
dangell@qctimes.com
ROCK ISLAND — In the days leading up to Illinois’ 72-65 victory over Iowa in the girls’ high school all-star game, Victoria May of Riverdale hardly could contain her excitement.
For years, she and teammate Lauren Ickes spent the winter playing against friends Shelby Steger of Kewanee Wethersfield and Ella Teel of Ridgewood. This time, they would all be playing together against eastern Iowa’s best and spent the week talking about finally getting that chance.
When they stepped on the court on Monday night, they quickly made up for lost time.
May scored 20 points, Steger added 11 and Illinois played like a team that had been together all season instead of for just one day in beating Iowa at Augustana College.
“It was so exciting,” said May, who was named most valuable player. “We all clicked. (Coach Gary Altman) picked two teams, and we all clicked on both teams. He kept switching it up, and nothing didn’t work. It’s amazing how we can get out there and have that connection.”
Despite both teams having just one practice before Monday night, neither side had much trouble developing chemistry. Every player on both sides scored in the game, and May was the only player on either squad to play more than 21 minutes.
Steger said that was because every player in the game was talented and knew what winning required.
“Good players know how to jell fast,” she said. “We really bonded quickly.”
The result was that Illinois was able to neutralize Iowa’s size advantage. With Moline’s Marquisha Harris missing the game because of a choir event in New York, Illinois had no players taller than 5’11”, while Iowa boasted 6’2” Megan Hayes of Bettendorf and 6’1” Stacey Clark of Pleasant Valley.
Hayes led Iowa with 13 points and 11 rebounds, but Illinois answered with defense and quality 3-point shooting.
Illinois shot 45 percent from the arc and came up with several key shots to hold off Iowa. After May hit her first 3-pointer of the game with 11 minutes left in the first half to put her team ahead 14-13, Illinois did not trail again.
Despite the loss, Hayes was in good spirits afterward, although she struggled with the fact that her high school career had ended.
“It’s an honor to play with these girls and wear the uniform one more time,” Hayes said. “But it’s always hard when your season is over. I can’t believe high school (basketball) is over.”
May had the same thought.
“It’s very surreal,” she said. “That was the last game I’ll ever play with this jersey on, and it’s sad. But that was a good way to go out.”

Rockland comeback falls just short

  CALDWELL — As soon as teammate Ty Colton's final shot bounced away in Rockland's 56-55 loss to Salmon River, Rockland senior Colton Christensen covered his head with his jersey.

    This was not the way the story was supposed to end for the Bulldogs. This had been the season their nine seniors dreamed about, and nobody thought it would end with a loss in the quarterfinals.

    The problem was that Rockland had dug its hole too deep.

    The Bulldogs outscored Salmon River 16-5 over the final 3:19 of the game, but twice failed to get the basket they needed to take the lead as their state championship dream ended against the Savages on Thursday afternoon at Caldwell High School.

    “We let them jump out on us in the third quarter,” Rockland coach Dan Ralphs said. “We got down 12 (51-39), and you can't do that in a state tournament. The kids played their hearts out and dug themselves back in, but it was too little, too late. If we had another minute or two on the clock, the outcome could have been completely different.”

    Actually, another five seconds would have made a world of difference for the Bulldogs (16-3). Rockland had a chance to win the game after Salmon River's Jake Manley missed a pair of free throws with seven seconds remaining, but the fact that the Bulldogs were out of timeouts cost them.

    After the Savages (17-6) knocked the ball out of bounds, the Bulldogs were down to 3.7 seconds left to set up a winning shot. All Colton had time to do was drive toward the hoop and hope for a bank or that senior forward Matt Nelson would be able to get a rebound and have time for a putback.

    Nelson did get the rebound, but it came a second after the buzzer had sounded, sealing the Bulldogs' fate.

    “We had Matt in the right spot, but it was too late,” Ralphs said. “Ty got off an off-balance shot, which wasn't what we wanted.”

    Christensen had 19 points to lead the Bulldogs, while Nelson added 10 and Tyrell Turley finished with eight after hitting two 3-pointers in the final minute that gave Rockland a chance to pull off the miraculous comeback. Manley had 15 points to lead Salmon River.

    Rockland will play Castleford at 6:15 p.m. tonight at Caldwell in the consolation round. The Bulldogs are in the rare position of being a consolation team with a purpose, since they will be trying to extend Ralphs' 37-year coaching career by one more game.

Regardless of whether that happens, Ralphs left proud of his players.

    “I think everybody there saw that these kids have big hearts and aren't going to quit on anything,” Ralphs said. “They fought all the way, and I was proud of them. We just waited a little too long to get our engines going.”

Bruins end Diamondbacks' season again

    BOISE — With 1:34 remaining in Century's 42-31 loss to Twin Falls, Century coach Cody Shelley chastised his team for its lack of perspiration, telling the Diamondbacks that if they weren't tired, something was wrong.

    Something was wrong, but it was because this just wasn't the Diamondbacks' night.

    Whether it was Ty Ravsten saving a wild pass — only to see it end up chased down by Twin Falls' Jayson Welker because none of his teammates were around to grab the ball — or the Diamondbacks' numerous missed layups and putbacks, nothing went Century's way as Twin Falls (19-7) ended its season in the 4A quarterfinals for the second consecutive season on Thursday night at Borah High School.

    Shelley thought that the Diamondbacks' failure to score in the second quarter ended any chance they had at a win. The Diamondbacks (13-10) managed just one basket in the eight-minute frame, a putback from Jeffrey Scott Andrews, and were outscored 10-2 in the quarter.

    “That was a big turning point in the game,” Shelley said. “Against a team that runs a Princeton-style offense, when you give them an eight-point lead, their possessions turn into 30 or 45 seconds. You almost have to play error-free to get back into the game.”

    The Diamondbacks did not. Twin Falls' patience forced Century to get overly aggressive, leading to defensive mistakes that left the Bruins with several open looks at the basket. Tyler Wolters had most of them, scoring 14 points and hitting all four of his attempts from the 3-point arc.

    Century did manage to contain Twin Falls star Eric Harr, holding him to just eight points, but it didn't matter because most of the Diamondbacks' jump shots never made it to Boise.

    Century senior Zachery Cuttlers tried to make up for the off-nights the rest of his teammates had by scoring 19 points, but no other Diamondback scored more than five points.

    “It's my senior year, and I didn't want to lose,” Cuttlers said. “This is the last chance I'll ever have, but shots weren't going in, we weren't playing together and the defenses quit on us. Everything was going bad.”

    Outside of Cuttlers, the Diamondbacks shot 4-for-25 and missed several easy layups.

    Before the week, Century's players said they hadn't forgotten last season, when they lost three times to a much more talented Twin Falls squad that ended up the eventual state champions.

    That only made Thursday night hurt more because the Diamondbacks thought the game was there for the taking and they hadn't taken advantage of the opportunity.

    “I don't know what to say,” Cuttlers said. “It's tough because we thought we had it. Maybe we got a little too cocky when we came into this, and it got into our heads and we let it slip by us. We should have had it, but we didn't play well together.”

    Century will play Bishop Kelly in a consolation game at 3 p.m. today at Borah.

Pirates eliminate No. 1 ranked Kubs

BOISE — With 2:35 remaining in West Side's 42-36 victory over Kamiah, West Side guard Kyler Austin knew he didn't have much time to react when Kamiah center Eric Hill got the ball in the low post.

    West Side led 36-27, so Austin had no desire to commit a foul and give the Kubs a chance to cut into the lead. But he also wasn't about to give up the easy bucket. All he could do was stand his ground and hope for the best.

    A second later, the whistle blew and Austin had the result he wanted. He'd drawn the offensive foul and Hill was out of the game. The mentality to do anything to win proved to be the difference as West Side (18-6) returned to the 2A state semifinals by beating Kamiah (22-2) on Thursday night at Capital High School.

    “We knew that Kamiah was a tough team, and in order to beat them, we were going to have to play our butts off for the whole game,” Austin said. “Our mindset was to outhustle them for 32 minutes.

    “(West Side) coach (Tyler) Brown really pounded it into our heads that they were a solid team, and we were going to have to be tough and smart. Part of being tough is being able to take charges.”

    Before the game, Brown told his team that rebounding and containing Kamiah junior guard Jack Nygaard were the keys to the game. The Pirates executed the plan to perfection.

    Nygaard finished with 15 points to lead all scorers, but he had to shoot 5-for-18 from the field to do it, and most of his points came after West Side had established a comfortable lead.

    “Nygaard can really shoot it, and their other kids really look for him to score,” Brown said. “As he goes, they go. I'm proud of my kids for playing. We knew we had to stop him and limit his points.”

    Meanwhile, West Side handled Kamiah on the glass, outrebounding the Kubs 36-25 and grabbing 25 defensive rebounds.

    “If something is really important to coach Brown, he writes it three times,” West Side forward Tanner Smart said. “(Rebounding) was the main thing he had written three times. It was the same as our last play-in game, do or die. If we lose, our ultimate goal is out of the picture.”

    Smart made sure the Pirates' goal of finally winning an elusive state championship was still in play by scoring 13 points to lead West Side. Six of those points came during a 90-second stretch when Kamiah started to gamble with a press to try to get back in the game, leaving Smart open for his teammates to find him.

    “My teammates did an amazing job getting the ball into me,” Smart said. “To return the favor, I've got to score for them.”

    West Side returns to the state semifinals, but for the first time in five years, longtime nemesis Firth is not around to block their path. The Cougars lost on Thursday night to New Plymouth, ending their four-year run as 2A state champions and setting up a meeting between West Side and New Plymouth tonight at 8 p.m.

    The Pirates hoped that they would be the ones to end Firth's reign, but going through the Pilgrims is fine with them.

    “Our mindset the last week is that (if) you win, you move on, and (if) you lose, you go home,” Austin said. “We don't want to go home. We've worked too hard to even consider it. We've got two more games in West Side jerseys, and we're going to do everything we can to take these jerseys off with pride.”

Bengals' season ends with loss

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Things got so bad for Idaho State during its 84-68 loss to Montana State that at one point in the first half, the Bengals were playing with only four men on the court.

    Things weren't going any better when the Bengals had all five players in the game.

    After hanging with Montana State for a half, Idaho State threw away the opening possession of the second half and things went downhill from there as the Bengals ended their season with a blowout loss on Wednesday night at Worthington Arena.

    “The motivation was not the same as Monday night was, but this was another opportunity to play basketball,” Idaho State coach Joe O'Brien said. “I think some kids listened to that, but some other guys were less than what we needed. We don't have the luxury of having some guys play well and some guys not playing well.”

    As a result, Idaho State (9-20, 4-12 Big Sky) provided the perfect opposition for Montana State's seniors Erik Rush, Bobby Howard and Danny Piepoli, all of whom made their last home game a night they would treasure forever.

    Piepoli led the Bobcats (13-17, 7-9) with 22 points, while Howard and Rush each added 20 to combine for 62 points, 17 more than Montana State even scored in the first meeting between the teams on Jan. 24.

    “We came out of the locker room and just didn't defend,” O'Brien said. “It's a difficult situation when there's not something out there to achieve and shoot for. My hat's off to their three seniors. They played their last home game the way seniors are supposed to, and I'm glad they're gone.”

    Broderick Gilchrest closed out his career at Idaho State with 23 points, but still felt responsible for Idaho State's poor finish to the season, even if he never stopped giving his best effort.

    “I was going to play hard to the end regardless,” Gilchrest said. “But as a team, I'm sorry for the performance we put on. We weren't playing for anything but pride, but to let that go is unacceptable. That's a lack of caring about the game to hold your pride. I didn't want to go out there and not play with pride, and I was proud of a couple of the younger guys for the way they responded.”

    The problem was that the Bengals didn't get enough of those guys to respond, allowing the lead to get as large as 69-44 when Piepoli hit the fifth of his six 3-pointers with 9:51 to play. After that, the only suspense was when Montana State coach Brad Huse would allow his seniors a moment of glory.

    Freshman Andre' Hatchett had 11 points for the Bengals and was the only one of the players returning next year to score in double digits. He said O'Brien blamed himself for the finish, but he disagreed because O'Brien wasn't the one playing in the game.

    “I felt like there was no energy tonight out there,” Hatchett said. “Some guys just weren't ready to play. We tried to win for the seniors in their last game, but I think mentally, people had given up already after the Northern Colorado game.

    “It's been tough going from winning a state championship last year to not making the tournament. We have to stay focused to turn this thing around next year.”

Chiefs can't stop Murtaugh

AMERICAN FALLS — With 4:30 left in Sho-Ban’s loss to Murtaugh, things appeared to be heading in the Chiefs’ favor.
    They had used a 7-0 run to cut the Red Devils’ lead to 38-36 and had a chance to push the lead even further when guard Shawn Running Horse got a look and fired a 3-point attempt.
    But Running Horse’s shot clanged off the side of the rim, and Murtaugh made sure that two points was as close as Sho-Ban was going to get. A minute later, Murtaugh forward Humberto Pacheco rebounded a miss and put it in, and the Chiefs’ offense disappeared.
    Sho-Ban did not score in the final 5:10 and its season ended one game short of reaching the 1A Division II state tournament on Saturday at American Falls High School.
    “It was hard for us to come by baskets tonight,” Sho-Ban coach Pete Conway said. “We had some momentum right there, but it seemed like all night, when we needed a big basket, there seemed to be a lid on the hole.”
    Conway and the Chiefs (15-9) had to be feeling that way in the final minute of the third quarter when Andre Graves made a steal and fed Lonzo Coby for a layup. Coby’s shot inexplicably rimmed out, keeping Murtaugh ahead 35-27.
    Coby would end the quarter with a basket, but the damage of the missed shot came when the Chiefs came up two points short of tying the score.
    Cole Takes Horse led Sho-Ban with 11 points, but he and his teammates had no answer for Pacheco, who finished the game with 30 points. When the Chiefs managed to slow him down in the second half, Austin Stanger had 13 points to fill the void.
    “We tried to face guard him and deny him the ball,” Conway said. “But he’s able to get open on his own without screens. Humberto stole the show tonight.”
    Sho-Ban’s other problem was that Murtaugh learned from an earlier loss to the Chiefs and set its strategy to slow them down. When the Chiefs couldn’t make baskets, their hopes of a state bid were foiled.
    Still, Conway was proud of what his team accomplished.
    “They shouldn’t have anything to hang their heads about,” he said. “We won three games last year, and (this year) we were one win away on consecutive nights from making it to Caldwell.”

Pirates sail to state tournament

By Dan Angell
dangell@journalnet.com
    AMERICAN FALLS — As soon as the buzzer sounded in West Side’s 60-43 win over Butte County, West Side junior JD Cook high-fived teammate Dallas Turnbow and broke into a big smile.
    He had certainly earned it.
    Cook scored 24 points and made sure that West Side’s season would continue as the Pirates clinched their fifth straight trip to the 2A state tournament on Saturday at American Falls High School.
    “We really wanted to focus on rebounding and playing defense,” Cook said. “The offense comes when you’re playing good defense.”
    The southern Pirates (18-6) weren’t happy about the way they rebounded on Thursday night in a win over Wendell. This time, West Side made rebounding the key to its game plan, then executed it almost to perfection.
    Once Butte County found itself limited to one shot, it got desperate and began to play at a tempo that was too fast for it to handle. That was exactly what West Side was waiting for.
    Several Butte County mistakes turned into easy steals for West Side’s quick backcourt, with the lead growing as big as 46-26 in the fourth quarter when Cook finished a layup after a Butte County turnover.
    “Our goal was to keep them off the glass and then make sure we executed and ran a little bit,” West Side coach Tyler Brown said. “We wanted to attack the basket, and it paid off for us in the first half. All in all, we played a pretty good game defensively.”
    Tanner Smart added 12 points for West Side, most of which came inside. With West Side’s defense flustering Butte County, interior baskets became plentiful and allowed West Side to play with a double-digit lead for almost all of the final three quarters.
    “We came out with some energy and urgency,” Smart said. “Something clicked in our head that said it’s do or die time, and we had to give it our all.”
    After playing its way into the state tournament with two victories, the Pirates won’t get a break when they reach Boise. Their state tournament will open at 6:15 p.m. on Thursday at Capital High School against Kamiah, which lost the state title to Firth last year by a point.
    However, Cook saw a positive in the fact that the Pirates had to take the back door to get back to the state tournament.
    “At the district tournament, we were in a little bit of a slump,” Cook said. “These last two games have helped us get back on track. It’s probably the best thing that’s happened to us. We have a tough bracket, but we’ve figured things out and we’re ready to go.”

Bengal men fall short of Big Sky tournament

By Dan Angell
dangell@journalnet.com
    After several frustrating finishes and close losses, the final play of Idaho State’s 77-74 loss to Northern Colorado provided the perfect conclusion for the Bengals.
    With 6.7 seconds left, Idaho State drew up a play to free senior guard Broderick Gilchrest, hoping for a similar result to the Feb. 12 win over Northern Arizona in which Gilchrest nailed the 3.
    The problem was that Northern Colorado had the 3-point arc defended almost perfectly, and Gilchrest couldn’t get an open look. By the time the senior found space to get a shot off, Northern Colorado guard Chris Kaba’s right arm was there to swat it away and the Bengals’ last hope of reaching the Big Sky tournament died on Monday night at Holt Arena.
    While the Bears celebrated moving one win away from winning the Big Sky regular season title, the Bengals could only wonder what might have been if they hadn’t come up short so often at the end.
    “That’s the story of the conference season,” Idaho State coach Joe O’Brien said. “That’s probably the fifth game in the conference season that we were that close to going the other way. I hope the experience that the returning players have been through sinks in and next year they utilize it.”
    The Bengals (9-19, 4-11 Big Sky) ended up falling short again because they were unable to build off their momentum in the second half. When Idaho State ripped off an 18-6 run to take a 64-60 lead, it appeared the Bengals might pull off the surprising upset.
    Instead, Idaho State missed five of its next six shots. From that point on, Northern Colorado (18-10, 12-3) took over the game. After using the opportunity to regroup, the Bears ripped off a 13-4 run capped off by a 3-pointer from junior Elliott Lloyd that proved to be the decisive blow.
    “It was just guys executing and stepping up,” Northern Colorado coach B.J. Hill said. “We drew up that play for Elliott Lloyd out of a timeout, and he banged it. For a kid that’s been struggling enough to have enough confidence to shoot that says a lot about him.”
    Lloyd had just five points, but that shot allowed the Bears to win the game from the free throw line. Devon Beitzel led all scorers with 28 points, 16 of which came from the stripe.
    Gilchrest finished with 26 points in his final game at Holt Arena, but his last game in Pocatello was anything but memorable in his eyes. Minutes after the loss, he despondently sat in the stands, trying to come to grips with the fact that his senior season would end on Wednesday at Montana State.
    “I felt for the guys last year who went out to the same way,” Gilchrest said. “We (the seniors) all pleged that we were going to do something different. We were going to make the tournament and not go out with a bitter taste in our mouths, but the season’s ending the same.
    “We stayed together, but we couldn’t pull it off.”