Priest River suffers first loss of the season

PRIEST RIVER ­­— The Priest River girls basketball team hung around at times, but couldn’t quite put everything together during a 54-35 home loss versus St. Maries on Tuesday night.

“We were prepared to handle the zone, but we made a lot of turnovers,” Priest River head coach Morgan Douglas said. “That was a big part of the game: We made sloppy passes, guards turned the ball over and we weren’t aware of who was around us.”

The Lumberjacks sprinted out of the gate by scoring six points in the fist minute, which set the tone for the rest of the contest. Their press baited Priest River into a myriad of turnovers, which made the game get out of hand.

However, Priest River flipped the script in the second quarter.

The Spartans locked down on defense, holding St. Maries without a field goal for nearly four minutes, and made a 9-0 run during that time to get back into the game.

With three minutes to play in the quarter, Priest River had its first good defensive possession.

St. Maries nearly burned a minute trying to figure out the zone, forcing head coach John Cordell to burn a timeout. The Lumberjacks had only one shot attempt on the ensuing possession, which fell into the arms sophomore wing Makia Fitsmorris, who scored on the other end.

“We did have some spurts of good offensive possessions when we were slow and controlled and ran through our sets,” Douglas said. “But the girls need to be focused on every possession and be under control.”

St. Maries’ offense finally broke through with a 21-point third-quarter, which put the game out of reach.

If Fitsmorris was the Spartans’ zone-buster on the perimeter, then junior forward Karah Fink was her counterpart underneath.

The junior posted her second-straight double-figure rebounding game in merely the first half, then added another five rebounds in the second. Fink’s final stat-line was 13 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks and a steal.

“[Fink] has the ability to get around people in the paint,” Douglas said. “She’s someone who can grab the boards and get back up. Karah is aggressive on the boards and she really showed it tonight.”

Priest River falls to 1-1 with the loss, and will play at Newport on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

St. Maries 14 10 21 9 — 54

Priest River 5 9 12 9 — 35

ST. MARIES — Haeg 11, Cordell 14, Davenport 14, Holder 6, Hammond 2, Rimel 3, Wilks 2, Crawford 2.

PRIEST RIVER — Minish 4, Fitzmorris 8, Kren 9, Fink 13, Martin 0, Rusho 1, Barnes 0