Season ender for Sandpoint
SANDPOINT — With their season on the line Friday night, the Sandpoint Bulldogs encountered a drought to end all droughts and, thus, saw their season come to an end.
“We thought we put ourselves in a good position being the number one seed. We felt like we were pretty evenly matched but they just caught fire in the third quarter and ran from there," head coach Brian Childs said.
Neck and neck with the Lakeland Hawks for the game’s first 12 minutes, Sandpoint scored just three baskets the rest of the way and was trounced 60-30 in Game 2 of a best-of-3 series for the 4A Region 1 title at Hawk Court.
“In the first three minutes of the second half they went from being up seven points to 16 points in the blink of an eye,” Childs said.
Lakeland (6-16) the third seed, won the championship series 2-0 and advances to state next week at Rocky Mountain High in Meridian.
Sandpoint, the regional tourney’s top seed, finishes 8-15.
“We just had a hard time scoring. We were ahead 20-18 then they went on a 9-0 run to end the first half,” Childs said.
Sandpoint, bidding for its first trip to state since 2009, lost Game 1 at home 66-64 on Wednesday.
Sandpoint took a 20-18 lead on Rusty Lee’s driving layin with just over 4 minutes left in the first half.
But Lakeland finished the half on a 9-0 run, then opened the third quarter on a 10-1 spurt.
A 3-pointer by freshman Sage Medeiros — Sandpoint’s only 3 of the night — ended a span of 8 minutes between field goals for the Bulldogs.
Arie VanDenBerg, who led Sandpoint with 10 points, scored on a runner a minute later to cut Lakeland’s lead to 40-26, and Randy Lane scored on a drive with just over 4 minutes left in the game for the Bulldogs’ final field goal.
Collin Cameron scored 16 of his game-high 23 points in the second half for Lakeland, which advances to state for the first time since 2021. Scotty Hocking added 16 for the Hawks.
“Cameron really shot the ball well for them tonight,” Childs said. “You’ve gotta give lakeland the credit, they’re playing well and playing together.”
Sandpoint 12 8 6 4 — 30
Lakeland 16 11 20 13 — 60
SANDPOINT — Pettit 2, Lee 6, Frank 2, VanDenBerg 10, Medeiros 3, Eacret 0, Dickinson 2, Childs 0, Lane 3, Bopp 2, Jones 0, Hindberg 0.
LAKELAND — Nowell 7, Cameron 23, Ferguson 4, Ryan 4, Tebbe 0, Rothrock 0, Loutzenhiser 3, Hocking 16, Harris 0, Locke 3.
