Ugly wins still count. How Boise girls basketball staved off a 5A state tournament upset
Then there was one.
Boise remained the last 5A Southern Idaho Conference team standing after the first day of the 5A state tournament. Rocky Mountain, Middleton and Owyhee all lost, leaving just one team from the longtime power center of 5A girls basketball in the state semifinals for the second time in four years.
Top-seeded Boise (23-1) will take on fourth-seeded Coeur d’Alene (18-5) at 5 p.m. Friday at the Ford Idaho Center in a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which Coeur d’Alene won in double overtime.
No. 2 Lake City (24-2) faces No. 3 Rigby (23-2) at 7 p.m. as all the high seeds won their opening-round games Friday.
[Related: State tournament scores, brackets | Championship predictions | Scouting reports on every team]
BOISE 40, MADISON 31
It wasn’t pretty, but the top-seeded Brave will take it.
Boise battled to a first-round win Thursday, leaning on its state-leading defense and Avery Howell to return to the semifinals.
Few shots fell for Boise, which finished 13-for-39 (33%) from the floor. But the Brave’s mix of full-court presses and hard-nosed, half-court defenses did just enough to hang the 20th straight tally in the win column.
“It’s state, so you want to win and advance,” Boise coach Kim Brydges said. “That’s what we try to do every single time. So we accomplished goal No. 1. Goal No. 2 is to clean up a few things and be ready for tomorrow night.”
Boise took control of the game in the second quarter, finishing the frame on a 12-0 run and holding Madison (18-9) scoreless for the final 6:31 of the quarter.
Madison had no answer for Boise’s full-court press, and the run turned a 12-12 tie into a 24-12 game at halftime. The Bobcats never got any closer than five points the rest of the afternoon as they finished 10-for-34 (29%) from the floor.
“We have a lot of speed up front,” Brydges said. “We just had trouble getting our engines running, and so I thought Morgan Montgomery gave us some great minutes off the bench. I thought Sophia Clark wreaked a lot of havoc for their guards.”
Boise struggled to find open looks against Madison’s 1-2-2 zone, finishing 21 points below its season scoring average. But Howell carried the Brave offensively, finishing with 21 points and 16 rebounds. It marked the 16th double-double of the season for the McDonald’s All-American.
Alison Turcke added five points, and Montgomery and Kaity Haan each finished with four.
“I think it’s a good game to get our jitters out,” Howell said. “We have a lot of people that have been here before, had experience in the state tournament before. But I still think that we had some players that were just a little bit nervous for this game, and that definitely was hard for us.
“But I think coming together, especially in the fourth quarter, and just kind of grinding that one out was big.”
In last year’s semifinal, Boise gave up a five-point lead with 50 seconds left in regulation before falling to Coeur d’Alene. The Brave get a shot at revenge as they chase their first state title since 2005.
“I think that it’s going to be a good game, just like it was last year,” Howell said. “But I think that we’ve got it, and I have faith in our team.”
COEUR D’ALENE 50, ROCKY MOUNTAIN 40
After a cold first half, the Vikings caught fire behind the 3-point line to pull away in a rematch of last year’s state title game.
The defending champs made only 3-of-18 3-pointers in the first half, but they refused to alter their game plan and sank 6-of-7 in the third quarter to build a 15-point lead.
“You can’t make any shots you don’t take,” Coeur d’Alene coach Nicole Symons said. “We shoot tons in practice. I was like, ‘You know you guys are great shooters. You’ve just got to be confident, don’t think about it and just catch and shoot.’ And that’s what they did.”
UNLV signee Teagan Colvin finished with game highs in points (22) and assists (five). But it was senior guard Maddie Mitchell who made the difference.
Mitchell drained four 3-pointers in the third quarter to score all 12 of her points. The first came after Coeur d’Alene grabbed three offensive rebounds before finding her on the perimeter. With the lid off the basket, Coeur d’Alene never looked back.
Rocky Mountain cut the lead to seven points with 1:43 left in the fourth quarter, but that was as close as it would get.
“They’ve got a bunch of great shooters,” Rocky Mountain coach BJ Humphreys said. “Our game plan was to get out on shooters. We left Maddie Mitchell open three times in a row, and she hit them.
“Let’s call it a two-minute lapse in our game plan. At the end of the day, it cost us the game.”
Cianna Legaspi led Rocky Mountain with 19 points and seven rebounds. Sophomore Averee Osterhout added 10 points, and Logan Sailors finished with seven points.
The Grizzlies will face Madison in a consolation semifinal at noon Friday at Timberline.
LAKE CITY 76, MIDDLETON 57
The second-seeded Timberwolves wasted little time asserting their dominance, building a 20-point lead 14 seconds into the second quarter and leading by at least 16 points the rest of the way.
Lake City (24-2) fell just three points shy of the 5A state tournament scoring record (79 points), riding its press defense and fast-break offense to easy basket after easy basket.
“We needed to give all the effort we could give,” Lake City coach David Pratt said. “We set the tone early, and I felt really good about that tonight.”
Lake City’s Avery Waddington led the way with 20 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists. The 6-3 Montana signee surpassed 1,000 career points in the first half.
Senior guard Sophia Zufelt also scored 20 points and added four assists, and four of Lake City’s five starters finished with 10 or more points.
“These kids are so unselfish,” Pratt said. “They don’t look at the scoreboard. They don’t care about their stats. They just want to win, so they find open people.”
Sophomore wing Aysha Fried paced Middleton (20-5) with 16 points and nine rebounds. Fellow sophomore Zoey Blackwell added 15 points, five rebounds and three assists.
The Vikings will face Owyhee in the consolation semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday at Timberline.
RIGBY 54, OWYHEE 33
No. 6 Owyhee clawed its way into a 10-point deficit at halftime and entered the break with all the momentum on its side. But Rigby opened the third quarter on a 15-0 run, putting any chance of an upset to bed.
“We came in and just kind of regrouped, and just came back out with a little bit more fire,” Rigby coach Todd Barber said. “... They’re hungry, and they came out that way.”
Rigby started the game on an 8-0 run, leading from the opening whistle until the final buzzer. The Trojans suffocated Owyhee throughout the night, forcing 18 turnovers and holding the Storm 33% shooting (12-for-36).
Owyhee scored eight or fewer points in every quarter until the fourth, with the game well out of hand.
“They really know their identity,” Owyhee coach Jordan Ax said of Rigby. “I think that’s the biggest thing. They’re handsy, and, again, they’re just physical. They’re just a physical side.
“When you’re really good at being physical, teams that aren’t as physical, they start to get (their) head down and they stop. They play a different game. You’re taking them out of their rhythm. Rigby is super good at that.”
Rigby senior Mylee Graham scored a game-high 16 points and added five rebounds, while BYU signee Kambree Barber added a double-double of 13 points and 12 rebounds.
No Storm broke the double-digit barrier. Adelynn Wright led Owyhee with eight points off the bench, while Mikale Roy and Sydnie Rodriguez each chipped in six points.
This story was originally published February 15, 2024 at 4:44 PM.
