Timberlake girls win league and districts, off to state
SPIRIT LAKE — After playing a couple of nail-biters earlier this week, the Timberlake Tigers looked like, well, the Timberlake Tigers on Thursday.
Timberlake held Bonners Ferry to 17% shooting (9 of 52) from the field, and steamrolled the Badgers 64-25 in the deciding game of the 3A District 1 girls basketball tournament.
“In my opinion, we finally played like us,” Timberlake coach Matt Miller said. “I think it’s been at least six games since we kinda looked like us. We just kinda lost our mojo, lost our identity, and everything was just hard. We really struggled on the defensive end the last six games or so. We have a lack of focus and discipline is what we think it is as a coaching staff, and tonight we had it.”
“We had some sicknesses, and they were just exhausted," said Bonners Ferry coach Paula Petesch, who served as the junior varsity coach until taking over as head coach less than three weeks ago when Mike Cowley resigned due to health reasons. “We just couldn’t execute, and Timberlake did an amazing job of adjusting, and picking at our defense.”
Senior Kurtsten McKellips scored 17 points, and junior Jozee MacArthur 15 for Timberlake (16-5), which advances to state Feb. 15-17 at Middleton High. Timberlake figures to be the No. 3 seed at state based on MaxPreps rankings, but won’t know its first-round foe until the completion of all the state-qualifying tournaments.
Bonners Ferry, which won Game 1 55-53 for its first victory over Timberlake since 2015 — snapped a string of 24 straight losses to the Tigers — and finished 10-9 for the year.
“We were getting pretty worried (about not going to state), but we were willing to do whatever it takes,” MacArthur said. “And we did whatever it took.”
This season, the Badgers program dwindled to 14 girls and Cowley stepped in as coach.
Petesch said all those factors made the Game 1 victory over Timberlake even sweeter. To open the league the Badgers led Timberlake by 12 points at the Backwoods Brawl on Jan. 20, until the final minutes. This proved to the young team that they can keep up with the Tigers.
At the time Timberlake had not adjusted to Bonners Ferry’s offense, rather the Tigers played in man and zone defense.
For the fourth time this season — and the third straight game in the district title series — Timberlake used a triangle-and-two defense on Bonners Ferry freshman guard Taren Bateman and senior post Asha Abubakari.
Petesch said the Badgers knew Timberlake would look for a way to shut down their offense, but hadn’t predicted the triangle in Game 2.
MacArthur, sophomore Payton Young, and junior Marissa Needs traded off guarding Bateman, and McKellips, Morgan Dickinson and Needs took turns guarding Abubakari — and Markynn Pluid, when Abubakari was out of the game.
“We were so on it,” MacArthur said. “We locked down Taren, and then the people in the triangle were doing their jobs, and keeping it out of everybody else’s hands. We just did it as a team.”
“As a coaching staff, we felt that was the best way to guard them,” Miller said. “We just knew we weren’t doing it well, and we did it well tonight … Like anything, it’s not what you do but how you do it, and we executed better (tonight).”
“Timberlake had the home court advantage,” Petesch said, noting that by Game 3 the Badgers were exhausted and if they’d had more time to practice between games, they could have drawn up a better offense to combat the triangle.
McKellips, who transferred after playing her first three seasons at Lake City, scored 10 points in the second quarter — this after picking up two fouls in the first quarter and sitting the rest of the quarter.
Her three-point play to open the second quarter capped a 10-0 run for the Tigers. With Timberlake leading 21-12 with 6 minutes left in the first half, the Tigers went on a 20-0 run stretching into the third quarter, holding Bonners scoreless for some eight minutes.
“She (McKellips) saw she had a really good matchup; she came and talked to us about it,” Miller said. “So we went to a couple of sets where we tried to get the ball to her inside, and she did a fantastic job with it. But that was all her, making the read and talking to the staff about it. Being a senior leader is what she was there for.”
“I was just saying that the girl that was guarding me, she was shorter than me, and I knew I could help us out in the post,” McKellips said. “I feel like it really boosted all of our confidence, and made us want to win more as a team, and not just as individual players.”
Timberlake shot 55% (21 of 38) from the field.
Timberlake won its second straight district title, and has won nine of the last 10 games they have played against the Badgers.
Bonners Ferry was seeking its first district crown since 2013, and first state berth since 2021.
Bateman finished with eight points to lead the Badgers.
Bonners Ferry 8 4 10 3 — 25
Timberlake 15 21 23 5 — 64
BONNERS FERRY — Petesch 0, Kimball 4, Baisden 5, Pluid 4, Bateman 8, Abubakari 4, Johnson 0, Thompson 0, Hiatt 0.
TIMBERLAKE — Dickinson 6, Young 9, Nelson 2, MacArthur 15, Simpson 6, Sjolund 0, Needs 9, Dykes 0, Yetter 0, Cooper 0, McKellips 17.
Asha Abubakari goes up for a layin against Timberlake at the 3A IML District tournament.
Brooke Petesch goes to block a shot at the 3A IML District tournament.