Priest River shows marked improvement in loss to Wallace

PRIEST RIVER — A scoreless second quarter was the Spartans' downfall in a 62-38 loss to Wallace on Tuesday night at PRLHS.

Take away that quarter, and the Priest River girls basketball team hung with the Miners all night long. After opening the season with a disappointing 50-18 defeat to North Idaho Christian, head coach Gary Stewart said he saw a lot of positives on Tuesday.

"I'm just happy with the improvement between Friday and today," he said.

Even more impressive, the Spartans were unable to work on any mistakes they made in between games. Monday's practice was canceled due to a power outage at the school caused by the wind storm.

Stewart said Priest River's inability to handle the press killed them in that defeat to North Idaho Christian, but it was a completely different story against the Miners.

"I thought we just looked more confident against their pressure," he said, "and they must have saw it too because they got out of the press right away."

Wallace outscored Priest River 17-0 in the second quarter and that proved to be the difference.

"To Wallace's credit, their biggest thing is they changed defenses on us a lot; 1-3-1, 2-3 and back into man," Stewart said. "We had no 1-3-1 offense so we just had to make something up on the fly and that second quarter was really the feeling out quarter for that."

The Spartans jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, but the Miners quickly reeled them in and took a 33-14 advantage into halftime.

Priest River came out with a purpose in the third quarter and cut the deficit to 16, but they were unable to make a run down the stretch to get any closer.

The Spartans struggled containing Wallace's Jaden House. The senior guard went off for 27 points, seven rebounds and two steals. She buried six 3-pointers.

"She did the same thing to us last year," Stewart said. "That girl can shoot from anywhere."

Priest River struggled with the Miners' size and was outrebounded 37-25.

"I told the girls we just got to work on transition defense because we got burned so many times," Stewart said.

Sophomore point guard Samantha Pound led the Spartans with 12 points and three steals. She drilled four 3-pointers. Stewart said he's talked with Pound about hunting her shot, and she did that Tuesday.

"Sam's good enough that she's got the green light to pull the trigger whenever she wants," he said.

Junior Lilly Freitas tallied 10 points, six rebounds and four steals, sophomore Marley Burgess-Duquette had 6 points and freshman Desarai Humphrey finished with 4 points, six steals and four rebounds. Sophomore Allyson Barton added 2 points and 11 rebounds.

In Friday's season opener against North Idaho Christian, Priest River went 0 of 8 from the free-throw line in the game and only scored 4 points in the first half.

Stewart said the Spartans played zone defense in the first half — something they didn't do all of last season — and they just couldn't slow down the Royals, who scored 36 points in the opening 16 minutes.

"We switched up to man defense in the second half and it got a little better," Stewart said. "We were able to at least give them some resistance."

Pound led the team with 8 points, Freitas tallied 4 and Addison Kingery, Barton and Lizzie McCracken each had 2.

Priest River (0-2) returns to action Wednesday, Dec. 1 when they head to Clark Fork.

Wallace 16 17 15 14 — 62

Priest River 14 0 18 6 — 38

WALLACE — Specht 2, Gibson 0, House 27, Br. Phillips 5, Welch 4, Burmeister 11, Be. Phillips 0, Hendrick 2, Hemphill 2, Hunter 5, Taylor 2.

PRIEST RIVER — Burgess-Duquette 6, Pound 12, Freitas 10, Thompson 0, Humphrey 4, McCracken 2, Kingery 2, Barton 2.

N.I. Christian 19 15 4 12 — 50

Priest River 2 2 8 6 — 18

NORTH IDAHO CHRISTIAN — Garn 6, Cate 0, Salaiz 0, Kelly 12, Overturf 5, S.Pilgrim 22, Malinauskas 3, Sandwald 0, Y. Pilgrim 2.

PRIEST RIVER — Duquette 0, Pound 8, Freitas 4, Davis 0, Humphrey 0, McCracken 2, Lumbard 0, Barton 2, Kingery 2.