Lady Badgers end season with losses to Timberlake, Priest River

The Lady Badgers basketball season came to an end last week with back-to-back losses to league rivals Timberlake and Priest River.

After upsetting Priest River 46-33 to open the district tournament, Bonners Ferry ran in to a buzzsaw against Timberlake in the district championship game, losing 63-28. The Lady Badgers would then face Priest River for the fourth time this season for the opportunity to travel to a play-in game, losing 47-35.

It’s been a tumultuous season for Bonners Ferry, as the girls were faced with the resignation of head coach Chris Chatburn midway through the schedule. Mike Cowley was chosen to take over the reins, and the players rallied around their new coach.

“The girls really responded, and they worked hard and played together,” Cowley said. “That was my biggest hope, that they would stay together. And they were awesome at that.”

Cowley had coached the majority of the players during their time on the JV squad, so the transition was relatively seamless. 

“I changed a few things, just so they knew I’d be doing things a little differently,” Cowley said. 

“We weren’t doing things a whole lot different, but it kind of gave the girls a fresh start. I tried to convince them I had faith in them, and they needed to have faith in themselves. If they kept working hard, good things would happen.”

With four sophomores on the starting five, the Lady Badgers are poised to be a force in the coming seasons in the Intermountain League. Cowley said the future looks bright.

“When you start four sophomores, the future should be pretty good,” he said.

Speaking about the district title game against Timberlake, Cowley said the score didn’t reflect the effort from BFHS.

“We thought we had a pretty good gameplan,” Cowley said. “But their pressure is so relentless, it gets a little intimidating. Players will make a mistake, and that leads to another mistake, and it becomes difficult to weather that storm. Timberlake is also a very deep team, they substitute on a regular basis, and they’re just relentless with their pressure, when they have the ball and when they don’t.”

With the following game against Priest River, Cowley was hoping his team could duplicate the success of Monday’s game, which put the Lady Badgers into the district title game.

“Last Monday, we played really well against Priest River, we really handled them,” he said. “Everything they tried to do we beat them at. Our kids played really well and they were focused. We turned them over and turned those into scores, it was really nice. Thursday was a little different, Priest River played really well, that was the best I’ve seen them play all year by far. They got up on us in the third quarter, we put pressure on them, but they handled it and kept their lead.”

With the season at an end, Cowley praised his team for battling through adversity and working as a team through off-court distractions.

“They’re super-good kids,” he said. “I never had any major problems at all. They’re all really good students. There were never any worries about grades or behavior in the classroom. They’re just awesome kids. They really seemed to respond to me, the just said ‘Here’s the guy we have, so let’s just go and get the job done.’ They also really cared about each other, and I think there are some life-long relationships there. And as far as next year goes, some of the kids are already talking about getting into the gym and getting better for next year.”

Timberlake 63, Bonners Ferry 28

Bonners Ferry

Bauer 2, Skeen 4, Oxford 0, Spangler 1, Wenk 13, Coughlin 0, Bateman 0, Donn 2, Webster 2, Golder 2, Davis 2, Burt 0.

Priest River 47, Bonners Ferry 35 Scoring

Bonners Ferry

Bauer 2, Skeen 4, Oxford 2, Spangler 3, Wenk 4, Coughlin 2, Bateman 3, Donn 0, Webster 0, Golder 13, Davis 0, Burt 2.

Priest River

Hurd 0, Wilson 2, Downs 0, Gamma 3, Butler 0, Summers 21, Krampert 12, Huntley 0, Carey 6, Akre 3, Dement 0.

Avery Summers scored 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting and second-seeded Priest River trumped third-seeded Bonners Ferry in a 3A District I loser out game on Thursday, avenging their 46-33 first-round loss to the Badgers on Monday.

The Spartans outscored the Badgers 12-2 after taking a narrow one point lead into halftime.

Summer added 10 rebounds to go with her 21 points. Krampert chipped in 12 points as well for the Spartans.

Trinity Golder had 13 points to lead Bonners Ferry.