No returning starters? No problem. Bishop Kelly ‘believed’ to repeat as 4A district champ
Winning back-to-back district titles is not easy.
Doing it with a whole new starting lineup is even more difficult.
The Bishop Kelly boys basketball team overcame that obstacle this season, repeating as 4A District Three Tournament champions with a 52-49 win over Skyview on Thursday night at Idaho Central Arena in Downtown Boise.
And that new starting lineup for 2022-23? It produced 49 of the Knights’ 52 points.
“We’re thankful to have the group that we have,” Bishop Kelly coach Ryan Kerns said. “We believed in ourselves, and maybe there wasn’t a lot of belief around us from the outside. But to cap it off with a district championship is just an awesome feeling.”
Bishop Kelly (14-9), No. 1 in the 4A SIC preseason rankings this season, needed late-game heroics in last year’s district title game, winning 51-44 in overtime. Things were just as tense this time around.
Junior Mason Suboh-Meuret scored on a layup with 30 seconds left to produce a three-point lead, and the Knights survived three Skyview 3-point attempts in the final 20 seconds to celebrate the championship and earn a spot in next week’s state tournament.
No. 2 Skyview (17-6) will face Ridgevue (9-15) in the district second-place game on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Ridgevue. The winner earns the 4A Southern Idaho Conference’s second spot in the 4A state tourney.
“(Coach) talks about commitment and being a team,” said BK senior starter Thomas Lodge, who had 13 points. “We’re all committed to staying together and winning, and he says to be 1% better every day.”
Lodge hit a pair of 3-pointers in the first quarter to help the Knights to an 11-4 lead. Fellow starters Cooper Cammann, Joseph Behrend and Suboh-Meuret all picked apart Skyview’s defense for baskets, and Rakeem Johnson contributed three free throws and two blocked shots as the lead ballooned to 26-15 at halftime.
But the Hawks weren’t backing down. Eloy Chaparro, who led all scorers with 20 points, had Skyview’s final seven points in the third quarter as the Hawks cut the lead to six, and a basket-and-one from the senior guard trimmed Bishop Kelly’s lead to 47-46 with about 3 minutes left in regulation.
Skyview senior Max Cutforth brought the Hawks within one again, at 50-49, with just over a minute to go. Bishop Kelly responded with Johnson finding Suboh-Meuret, who had an open drive for a layup with 30 seconds left, setting the final score.
Behrend led the Knights with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists. Suboh-Meuret had 12 points.
“At the end of the season, we had our five starters averaging seven points or more (per game),” Kerns said. “We don’t need one guy to score 20. We just want to share it and shoot it, and our guys do that with confidence. And that’s been one of our strengths all year.”
Leading scorer Chaparro had five rebounds, four assists and four steals for Skyview.
SENIOR GUIDES HOMEDALE TO 3A DISTRICT TITLE
Jaxon Dines scored a game-high 33 points, helping the No. 1 Trojans (15-7) to a 67-58 win over No. 3 Fruitland (14-10) in the 3A District Three Tournament championship game at Homedale.
The senior wing shot 7-of-9 from 3-point range and added seven rebounds. Luke Barinaga led the Grizzlies with 15 points.
Both teams have clinched a spot in next week’s 3A state tournament.
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 11:58 PM.