Score by Blackmore tops Timberlake in district tourney opener

COEUR d’Alene — Caleb Blackmore scored an overtime baseline jump shot to put the Badgers on top with less than six seconds left in the Intermountain League District opener and the Badger defense held on for the 46-44 win Feb. 23 at North Idaho College.

The Badgers split the season with the Tigers, with each of the teams scoring close home wins during regular season play. “It was a tough game, we knew it was going to be that way,” said coach Andy Rice. “Timberlake really played well.”

The first half started slowly for the Badgers, who had some great looks but couldn’t get their shots to fall.“They held us to our season low at half with 13,” Rice said.

Fortunately, the Badger defense was able to hold Timberlake to 20 in the first half. “It was kind of frustrating but we kept our heads up and regrouped at half time,” Rice said. “We came out with some great defensive pressure that really jump-started our offense and allowed us to get back into the game.”

The game came down to which team had the ball last. “I was glad that we set ourselves up to take the last shot, unfortunately it wasn’t a great look and we went into overtime,” Rice said.

Overtime was back and fourth, a two point game the whole time. “With 47 seconds left we had the ball and worked it down to about 10 -12 seconds before we really wanted to try to score,” Rice said. “With about 7 seconds left Caleb Blackmore received a ball screen from Collin Stone that allowed Blackmore to drain a baseline jumper.”

The Badgers were up by 2 with less than six seconds left. The teams traded timeouts before the Tigers brought the ball up on offense.“Elijah Price made a great defensive stop, knocking the ball out of Vance Kistler’s hands and out of bounds.” Rice said.

The clock stopped with 0.1 seconds. “Basically all they could do was tap the ball so they threw a lob pass from half court out of bounds that hit the rim and ran the clock out,” Rice said. “If it had gone in it still would not have counted. It had to be touched by a player to count.”

Blackmore lead the Badgers in scoring with 16 points, the last six coming in overtime, and Kaleb Stockton came through with 10. Brandon Hausladen lead all scorers in the game with 19 points for Timberlake and Thomas Hauck had 10 points for the Tigers. Wyatt Nelson had 9 points, Collin Stone had 7 and Pat O’Hara had 4 points to round out scoring for the Badgers.

“It was a great team win,” Rice said. “I was really proud of how we stepped up defensively and got back into the game.”The Badgers went on to play league-leader Kellogg in a winner-to-state game Wednesday, and Timberlake took on Priest River in a loser-out match.

Timberlake — 12 8 7 11 6 — 44Bonners Ferry — 5 7 12 13 8 — 46

Timberlake — Somershoe 4, Smith 9, George 0, Hausladen 19, Baier 0, Hauck 10, Jones 1, Menti 0, Kistlier 2, Hardy 0, Nolan 2.Bonners Ferry — Price 0, O’Hara 4, Stockton 10, Stone 7, Carle 0, Nelson 9, Blackmore 16, Bateman 0.