Wildcats state case

The Kellogg High girls basketball team did it the easy way this year – although going through the Intermountain League’s top teams was anything but a piece of cake.

A Cinderella story and play-in state qualifier a year ago, Kellogg captured its first 3A District I championship Tuesday, topping IML champion Bonners Ferry 45-35 in a defensive battle at Rolly Williams Court at North Idaho College.

Kellogg (20-2) advances to state, Feb. 15-17 at Middleton High School.

“This team’s been doing a lot of firsts, and this is just another one to tack on to their resume,” Kellogg coach Steve Bourgard said. “The back of their (celebration) T-shirts says ‘Hard work pays’ and nobody works any harder than Kellogg, and that’s why our defense always gets the job done.”

Bonners Ferry (14-8) and Priest River (15-7) play tonight to decide which team advances to a play-in game Saturday for another state berth. Tip-off at NIC is at 7.

Priest River stopped St. Maries 57-46 in a loser-out preliminary Tuesday.

Kellogg 45, BF 35: The Wildcats have used defense all season, so nothing changed in the district final.

After the Badgers’ leading scorer, senior Becky Lowther, picked up three fouls and had to sit out the second quarter, the Wildcats took advantage.

Kellogg held the Badgers to nine points in the first half. Behind IML most valuable player Amanda Seeling, the Wildcats built a 21-9 lead through two periods.

Seeling, a 6-foot-1 sophomore post, had half of her game-high 22 points in the first half.

“That was a great effort in the first half,” Bourgard said. “You could tell that it was important to us. We talked about trying to get either Lowther or (Kaitie) Poston into foul trouble early. We knew it would be a huge advantage to us.”

Bourgard expected the Badgers to make a run in the second half. Sure enough, with Lowther back in the offensive mix, BF tightened things up considerably in the third quarter.

A 3-pointer by Lowther pulled BF within 25-22 with 2:30 to go in the period. But moments later, Seeling was fouled by Lowther while shooting. Lowther had to go to the bench with four fouls and Seeling made both free throws.

Kellogg’s Katie Dumont made a fastbreak basket that allowed the Wildcats to take a 29-24 lead into the final quarter.

BF again pulled within three points at 33-30 when Poston made a basket with just less than 4 minutes to play. But Kellogg used a 9-2 spurt to pull away.

Kellogg secured the win by making 12 of 14 foul shots in the fourth quarter. Seeling helped the Wildcats control the boards as she had a game-high 13 rebounds.

“We panicked a bit offensively in the first half,” BF coach Travis Hinthorn said. “We made a good run in the third quarter and at least made a game out of it. We had to put pressure on them and they made some big shots. And then free throws down the stretch hurt. They didn’t let us catch up.”

Hinthorn said he was glad his team made a run at Kellogg so that the loss hurt.

“I told them that it’s great that the loss hurts because it means we care a lot, but we’ve got to not let it carry over into (today),” Hinthorn said. “We have to start (today) like we started the second half tonight.”

Lowther scored 10 of her team-high 14 points in the second half. She also had seven rebounds.

Priest River 57, St. Maries 46: There were two telling numbers in this game.

The Spartans had 13 fewer turnovers than the Lumberjacks, and PR took 25 more shots from the field.

Tabitha Clark led the Spartans with 16 points. Mallory Lehman had 11 to lead the Lumberjacks (6-17).