Timberwolves knock off Trojans

The Lake City High boys basketball team wasn’t stalling for stalling’s sake Friday.

The Timberwolves held the ball late in the second quarter and the final 4 minutes of the fourth period because they were in foul trouble. LC coach Jim Thacker thought the tactic was the best answer to getting through the game without losing a key player.

The strategy worked to perfection. Not only did LC’s players avoid fouling out, they made their free throws in the clutch as well, as the Timberwolves knocked off Post Falls 55-47 in an Inland Empire League game at The Arena.

LC made 12 of 14 foul shots in the fourth quarter, but it was the free-throw shooting of junior point guard Trent Bridges that was most critical. Bridges made nine straight before missing his first shot – his lone miss of the quarter. The miss came with victory in hand.

The game had an eerie finish. Moments after LC’s players were walking back to play following a timeout with 2:20 remaining, a tall parent of a Post Falls player walked in front of the T-Wolves bench and confronted Thacker, who, shall we say, is vertically challenged.

It took a few moments before the referees and a school official took control of the situation. But Thacker said afterward that the man told him to ‘play basketball.’

“I told him that’s what I was playing,” Thacker said. “He said, ‘You’re not either. You’re stalling.’ I said, ‘Go sit down,’ but he wouldn’t sit down.”

LC was clinging to a 48-45 lead when the incident occurred. Post Falls athletic director Craig Christensen ushered the man out of sight, but not out of the gym. Finally, well after the game, Christensen escorted the man out of the gym.

Brandon Haas made two free throws to pull the Trojans (8-9, 3-6) within 48-47 with 1:15 to go. Bridges made 5 of 6 free throws in the next 34 seconds to seal the win.

“I was trying to cut the game down a little bit because we had guys in foul trouble,” said Thacker, whose team improved to 11-4 overall, 5-2 in league. “Since we had the lead we decided to pull it out. The kids hung in there and made some key free throws. We had to work the clock.”

Bridges has made big foul shots in several games this season.

“Bridges was tough – man I’ll tell you,” Thacker said. “That’s a hard thing to do – to step up there and do that.”

Bridges said he had to make the free throws to give his team a chance to win.

“You’ve just got to do it. You’ve got to make the shots to put your team ahead and stay ahead,” Bridges said. “We shot them a lot in practice.”

Post Falls, which is in its first year in 5A, is 0-4 against the league’s big schools.

Spencer Pingel led PF with 12 points.