An upset, a shutdown and a last-minute hero top 6A girls basketball state tournament
The first round of the Idaho 6A girls basketball state tournament saw one surprise, a near shocker and some late-minute drama.
Madison, Boise, Owyhee and Coeur d’Alene all advanced to the semifinals Friday. Here’s how they got there.
[Related: Middleton, Parma, Melba win | State tournament scoreboard | Title predictions | Scouting reports on all 48 teams]
6A STATE SEMIFINAL MATCHUPS
The 6A semifinals tip off early at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa. Here’s the schedule:
- No. 6 Madison (17-8) vs. No. 2 Boise (22-3), 12 p.m.
- No. 1 Owyhee (23-2) vs. No. 5 Coeur d’Alene (17-7), 2 p.m.
IDAHO 6A GIRLS BASKETBALL STATE TOURNAMENT
BOISE 51, RIGBY 42: Boise coach Kim Brydges admits Kaity Haan makes her nervous sometimes. But she can’t argue with the results.
The 6-foot senior flew around the Ford Idaho Center on Thursday, imposing her will by dominating the paint, blocking shots and ripping the ball away from opponents. She finished the afternoon with 15 points, 10 rebounds, three steals and two blocks to power the No. 2 Brave (22-3) to their 13th straight win and third straight trip to the state semifinals.
“She’s a warrior,” Brydges said. “She was like a tornado in there. Sometimes my toes are curled, but she’s just a motivational and inspirational leader, and she plays hard.
“I think that’s one of the best compliments you can give a kid is, ‘You play hard.’ And she definitely plays hard every minute she’s on the floor.”
Boise led for 36:58 of the 42-minute contest but placed a stranglehold on the game with a 10-0 run to close the first half. Libby Nelson kickstarted the decisive run with a 3-pointer from the right wing, and Morgan Montgomery added a pair of layups off turnovers as the Brave turned up the pace in the open court.
“Presley (Binder) did a really good job of pushing up the court and seeing everything that was happening,” Haan said. “We knew that Rigby was going to come out and rebound really aggressively, so we saw the opportunity to push it down when they were still trying to get the boards.”
The Brave forced 19 turnovers and held No. 7 Rigby to 16-for-43 (37%) shooting, building a 13-point lead at halftime and leading by as many as 18 in the second half.
Haan put her name all over the stat sheet, but she wasn’t alone. Montgomery added 12 points, four assists and two steals, Avery Patricco finished with 10 points, and Nelson chipped in nine and three assists as Boise finished the game 17-for-39 (44%) from the floor.
After falling in the semifinals the past two years, Haan said Boise won’t rest on its laurels.
“Today, I thought we played really well. Tomorrow, we have to play even better,” Haan said. “That’s how it is going to be for Friday and Saturday, just keep pushing.”
Sydney Berrett topped Rigby (16-8) with nine points, and Tiade Togiai added eight points.
MADISON 48, EAGLE 45: An early dry spell doomed the Mustangs to an upset in the first game of the 6A state tournament.
No. 6 Madison (17-8) held third-seeded Eagle scoreless for the first 7 minutes, 18 seconds of the second quarter. Eagle (19-6) went 0-for-6 behind the arc and turned the ball over six times in that span, digging a hole it could never climb out of.
“The second quarter, they executed and we got away a little bit from our spacing,” Eagle coach Jeremy Munroe said. “But kudos to Madison. They did a great job in that zone.
“Our girls did a much better job for three quarters. They were outstanding, and did a great job breaking that zone down. It’s just that second quarter, it was hard.”
Madison utilized 1-2-2 and 2-3 zones to fluster the Mustangs, holding them to a 2-for-12 long-range performance in the first half and for scoreless stretches of 8:03, 3:06 and 3:01. Eagle eventually found its stroke in the second half, making 6-of-12 behind the arc after the break and cutting the lead to one with 32 seconds left.
But it was too little, too late as Madison’s Maggie Anderson sank four straight free throws in the final 30 seconds to seal the Bobcats’ first trip to the semifinals since 2017.
Mia Walsh paced Madison with 19 points, and Anderson added 11 points thanks to a 9-for-10 afternoon at the free-throw line. Taya Nelson led Eagle with 11 points, while Bella Thompson and Porter Wood each finished with 10.
The loss sent Eagle into the consolation bracket, where it will face Rigby at 5 p.m. Friday at Mountain View.
“The girls have heart. They have character. They’re gonna fight,” Munroe said. “So we’ll be back tomorrow, get after it, and try to get that trophy at the end of the weekend.”
OWYHEE 45, CAPITAL 33: It wasn’t a pretty victory, but it didn’t need to be.
Top-seeded Owyhee locked in defensively in the second half to rescue its state title aspirations and stave off an upset, advancing to the state semifinals for the first time in program history.
“It’s a milestone for our whole team in that we’re able to advance,” Owyhee senior Mikale Roy said. “Now we know what it’s like to win on this court.”
Capital caught fire behind the 3-point line in the first half to threaten creating a Cinderella story. But the 6A classification’s top defense held the Eagles without a field goal for the first 12:57 of the second half and held them scoreless for 9:09 of that to pull away.
Owyhee harassed Capital bringing the ball up the floor after halftime, forcing the Eagles to break a sweat just to get the ball across the timeline and limiting their chances to dial up 3-pointers. The Storm forced 20 turnovers and held Capital to 2-for-17 (12%) shooting in the second half.
“I think the trapping and speeding a team up like that really, really helped us,” Owyhee coach George Rodriguez said. “And hopefully we can just keep the mojo going.
“When the ball is not falling — I think we shot 3-of-15 from three. We’re just not putting the ball in the basket from the 3-point line. So we’re trying to manufacture buckets in transition off of defense.”
Roy led Owyhee with 13 points, seven rebounds and two steals, while Riley Beck added 13 points and five rebounds. Josie Davis finished with seven points, five assists and four steals.
Owyhee spent much of the season dominating Idaho opponents, going wire-to-wire as the No. 1-ranked team in the state media poll. But Roy said the Storm received a wake-up call in a district semifinal loss to Eagle, their first loss to an Idaho team this season.
“We didn’t give it our all in that game, and now we know teams can beat us,” Roy said. “... That’s what we needed to kind of start a fire within our team.”
Capital lived and died by the 3-point shot Thursday, finishing the night 5-for-14 behind the arc and 2-for-18 inside of it. Miriam Stafford led the Eagles with 13 points by sinking 10-of-10 free throws, and Elayna Jolly added nine points while making 3-of-5 behind the 3-point line.
The loss sent Capital into the consolation bracket, where it will face Borah at 7 p.m. Friday at Mountain View.
“We weren’t just happy to be here. We’re going for a trophy,” Capital coach Matt Creech said. “It’s not the trophy we wanted. But I think everyone has to pay attention to us just because of how hard our girls play, and that’s the reason why we’re here.”
COEUR D’ALENE 53, BORAH 47: Big-time players step up when the lights shine their brightest. And Brookeslee Colvin took the spotlight Thursday.
The Coeur d’Alene sophomore point guard scored her team’s final nine points and finished with 28 points and six rebounds to carry the two-time defending state champs into the semifinals.
“She just plays with a sense of urgency,” Coeur d’Alene coach Stacy Boyd said. “She knows how to impact our team. She knows what she needs to do.
“She knows when it’s time to go, and she’ll tell me right away. She’ll say, ‘Coach, it’s time for me to go.’ … And she usually does that.”
Borah twice rallied to tie the game in the final two minutes. But Colvin answered and got to the rim for a layup each time before sinking 4-of-4 free throws to ice the victory.
Her scoring drew most of the attention, but her most savvy play came on defense. Trailing by two with 32 seconds left, Borah tried to slow-roll the ball in bounds to conserve the clock. But Colvin came out of nowhere to get her hands on it, forcing a turnover that Lexie Wheeler eventually came up with.
The last-second theatrics were reminiscent of her older sister, Teagan Colvin, who made the Idaho Center her stage the past two seasons. But the since-graduated star now suits up for UNLV, and Brookeslee didn’t hesitate to stake her own claim to the spotlight.
“She’s just got a really high court IQ,” Boyd said. “She reads really well. So, yeah, she’s getting her hands on everything.”
Borah trailed by nine points early in the fourth quarter before mounting a dramatic comeback. But the Lions couldn’t get over the hump in the final minute, twice turning the ball over under their own basket.
Sophomore Nakiyia Percell posted a double-double of 18 points and 11 rebounds, and Kya Davis added nine points and eight rebounds. The Lions dropped into the consolation bracket, where they can compete for their first state tournament trophy since 2006.
“Throughout the game, there were small mistakes that we made,” Borah coach Ebony Norman said. “But, man, they’ve never seen a fight like that. So I can’t be disappointed in my team, whatsoever.
“... We could blame the refs all day or whatever. But we needed to execute on certain points that we didn’t. It wasn’t just one play. We were up at seven at one point. We need to keep our foot on the throat, and we just didn’t.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2025 at 4:33 PM.
