Hawks Headed to Districts After Hanging Tough with CDA and Lake City
Jared Rings shoots a free throw after technical called. -David Tesch
February 16, 2022
The energy of playing on the road against a school with thousands of kids is much different than many of the 4A games that Lakeland typically competes in.
As the boys’ basketball season has officially wrapped up, the Lakeland Hawks have finished at (8-10, 3-5 IEL) after losing their final two regular-season games in road losses against the Couer d’Alene Vikings(15-4, 8-2 IEL) on Feb. 11, and the Lake City Timberwolves(20-1, 8-1 IEL) on Feb. 15.
The Vikings beat the Hawks, 67-60, and the top-notch Timberwolves beat the Hawks, 59-32. In the Viking’s win on Friday, they outscored the Hawks, 20-5 in the third quarter, which was a good part of why they were able to hold off a feisty Lakeland team.
This was an impressive win from the Vikings even though Lakeland is 4A and is considered a level below as far as the number of athletes goes. The Hawks play everyone tough and especially so in their game against the Vikings, scoring 60 points in a road game for the second time this season.
Couer d’Alene’s win was led by Cameron Cope, who scored 25 points. Logan Orchard and Steven Burgess both played well, combining for 23 points.
Lakeland’s typical high scorers, Grant Roth and Bryce Henry, both played to their standard level of talent and combined for more than 50% of the Hawks’ 60 points. Henry scored 18 while Roth had 15.
Against the Lake City Timberwolves, practically everybody on the roster chipped in and played good minutes with forward Abe Munyer out with an illness. Scotty Hocking was the only double-digit scorer with ten points, but seven different players on the Hawks roster scored throughout the game.
Playing against two top players in the state, Blake Buchanan and Kolton Mitchell, the Hawks were given a tall task, especially being without Munyer to guard all 6’11 of Buchanan. However, Alden Waddington covered the skyscraper of a center and only allowed eleven points. Mitchell only scored seven points in the game and was frankly outplayed by Scotty Hocking. Nathan Hocking scored 15 points for the Timberwolves leading the team, including a dunk over Alden Waddington that got the home crowd going.
Josh Haug also was involved in a huge play after fouling Nathan Hocking hard and falling into the wall, getting a huge reaction from the crowd, which led to a technical foul being called on Lake City.
“We played great, and even though we lost, I am really glad about how we played. Nobody expected us to be able to hang with them. They are a top team in the state, and we stayed within a good range, and we had a lot of good energy. When Alden took the charge, our energy really increased, and we played good,” said Scotty Hocking.
Collin Cameron also mentioned that with our two best scorers only combining for nine points, he was very impressed by how the rest of the team was able to produce on both sides of the ball. Defensively we played really strong all game.
The Hawks will play next against Sandpoint in the first round of districts at home on Feb. 21.
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