Clarkston: 'A difficult place to play'

CHENEY – The Lady Blackhawks found the going rough in hardwood action last week, losing 55-40 to visiting Post Falls on Tuesday, Dec. 10, and 48-42 on the road Friday, Dec. 13, in Clarkston.

Cheney played the Idaho 5A Trojans pretty close, trailing 32-25 after three quarters of play. But in the final eight minutes, Post Falls found the range from downtown, hitting six 3-pointers to pull ahead for the win. In the previous 24 minutes the Trojans had hit just three 3s.

“They got a hot hand in the fourth and we couldn’t recover,” head coach Roxie Smith said.

Part of Cheney’s downfall also came from rebounding as Post Falls did a better job of cleaning the glass, out-rebounding the hosts 45-27, including 12 offensive boards. The Lady Blackhawks did a fair job protecting the ball, committing 18 turnovers to the Trojans 16, something Smith said she was OK with.

Offensively Cheney’s Maggie Smith led all scorers with 18 points while Tylin Hertel added 10. Hertel had nine rebounds, with Emma Evans hauling down six boards.

The loss that likely hurts the most for the Lady Blackhawks was the Great Northern League opener last Friday in Clarkston. Cheney hung close to a team that returned most of its players from last year’s state 2A tournament third-place squad, trailing just 38-36 heading into the fourth quarter in a gym Smith said is “a difficult place to play” with the crowd practically on top of the players and officials who see the rules of the game a bit differently at times.

The Lady Blackhawks downfall came via turnovers, committing 29 miscues that led directly to 24 Bantams points. Part of this came from increased pressure on ball handlers, something Smith said Clarkston typically doesn’t do, with the other part being Cheney’s need to make better decisions on when to push a fast break and when to stop, pull up and get into its offensive sets.

Evans led all scorers with 22 points, going 6 for 9 from 3-point range — three of those in the third quarter. Maggie Smith added 10 points — with Cheney’s defense holding Ashlyn Wallace, last year’s league MVP and Clarkston leading scorer at around 25 per points per game to just four points.

Cheney out-rebounded Clarkston 34-24, and shot 52 percent overall from 3-point range. But that scoring trailed off in the fourth, something Roxie Smith said is proving to be a “curse” for her team.

“That was a winnable game for us,” she said of Clarkston. “The girls grew in confidence just being able to go down there and compete.”

Cheney drops to 1-4 overall and is 0-1 in GNL play. The Lady Blackhawks have one game remaining before the winter break — a Wednesday, Dec. 18, home date with Idaho 5A Coeur d’Alene.

Smith said the Vikings are a lot like West Valley — who Cheney will host on Jan. 3 — and Post Falls, a team that features four guards and a post player who often sets up as a guard. Coeur d’Alene likes to press “baseline to baseline” and will provide the Lady Blackhawks a challenge to end the non-conference schedule on a winning note.

“It’s been a tough pre-season,” Smith said. “But Clarkston made us better.”

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].