Schoening leads Bulldogs to championship
COEUR d’ALENE — When Sandpoint High senior point guard Riley Couch went down with a right ankle injury early in the third quarter Wednesday night, Bulldog girls basketball coach Duane Ward’s first reaction was, “Oh, my gosh.”
Then he remembered how his bench players have improved over the year.
And, of course, he still had Madi Schoening.
Schoening, who has signed with Montana, scored all of Sandpoint’s 14 points over the game’s last 14 minutes, and finished with 22 as the Bulldogs held on to beat the Moscow Bears 38-26 in the 4A Region 1 championship game at North Idaho College’s Rolly Williams Court for their third straight regional title.
“Madi stepped up,” said Ward, a longtime basketball coach at various levels in Sandpoint, in his second year of his second stint as girls varsity coach. “She was struggling early on, then she got going. She’s a heck of a competitor.”
Sandpoint (13-9) will open at state next Thursday at 2 p.m. PST at Timberline High in Boise, facing the loser of tonight’s 4A District 4 title game between Minico (20-3) and Burley (15-9).
Moscow advances to a state play-in game Saturday at Grangeville vs. the third-place team from District 3.
Sandpoint, which scored the game’s first 10 points, led 24-14 when Couch, who had eight points, was helped off the floor. Moscow pulled within 30-26 early in the fourth quarter when Ward called timeout with 5:14 remaining.
Neither team scored for the next two minutes, then Schoening collected an inbounds pass from BreLynn Converse and sank a 3-pointer from the left wing with just under 3 minutes remaining.
Moscow was forced to foul — and foul — after that, and Schoening hit 5 of 6 free throws over the final 1:31.
“We had a timeout and I was sitting there thinking, ‘All right, I’ve got to take control; I’ve got to get this team hyped,” Schoening said. “I said ‘Let’s start having some fun, because this doesn’t look like fun,’ and that’s when we started to go off.”
Schoening, who scored all of Sandpoint’s points after Couch went out, also had eight rebounds, two assists and two steals. Grace Kirscher had four points, five rebounds and three steals.
“The thing I’m really proud of,” Ward said, “it started to slip away from them a little bit, and they regained their composure. And these kids are really tight; they’re a close-knit group; I’ve never had a group as close as they are. And they’re mentally tough, and I think some of that comes from the state championships in soccer … cross country. And all that stuff really helps.”
As for state, Schoening and the Bulldogs have high hopes.
“I started out not even going to state freshman year,” Schoening said. “Losing both games sophomore year. We got third last year so I feel like, why don’t we just win the whole thing this year? It’s a progression.”
Sophomore Gracey Meyer led Moscow with 10 points.
Moscow 8 3 11 4 — 26
Sandpoint 15 4 11 8 — 38
MOSCOW — Haeder 0, McDaniel 0, Bayly 2, G. Meyer 10, Hill 4, Simpson 6, N. Meyer 2, Frederiksen 2.
SANDPOINT — Schoening 22, DuMars 0, Converse 3, Ward 0, Couch 8, Hicks 1, Kaul 0, Kirscher 4.