| Pirates
knock off Grangeville 42-41
Tyler Crane and Matt Baerlocher each scored a huge basket in the final 70 seconds as the Prairie Pirates upset the Grangeville Bulldogs 42-41 in District Tournament loser-out play Tuesday, Feb. 24 at Lewiston. 
Grangeville led early in the game at 5-8 but Baerlocher scored a lay-up with an assist from Shane Doyle and then drove in for another lay-up and picked up a foul from Grangeville’s Chris Kaschmitter, his second, with 2:58 left in the first quarter. Baerlocher converted the 3-point play for a 10-8 lead. Doyle then took a pass out in the corner from Baerlocher and hit a 3-pointer for a 13-8 Prairie lead. Grangeville managed to trim the lead to 17-15 by the end of the quarter and then tied the score after neither team scored over the first 3 minutes of the second quarter. Crane then scored a lay-up with an assist from Baerlocher and after a Grangeville turnover, connected from 16 ft. out for a 21-17 lead. Grangeville came back with a 0-8 run to take the lead with 2:29 left in the half. Following another Grangeville turnover, Chad Arnzen scored inside to cut the lead to 2 and with 7 seconds left Kaschmitter picked up his third foul on another Baerlocher drive to the hoop. The basket was waved off but Prairie inbounded. Grangeville left Baerlocher unguarded in the right corner and Doyle inbounded to Matt for an uncontested 3-pointer to give Prairie a 26-25 lead at the half. That third foul took all the aggressive out of Kaschmitter’s defensive play in the second half as he was leery of picking up his fourth foul. Despite that, Grangeville started the second half with a 0-9 run that gave them their biggest lead of the game at 26-34 with 2:01 left in the third quarter. Prairie meanwhile turned the ball over on 5 of their first 7 third quarter possessions without even attempting a shot and were 1 missed shot and out the other two possessions. They finally broke through with a lay-up by Arnzen with an assist from Crane with 50 seconds left to cut the lead to 28-34 after 3 quarters. The Pirates trimmed the lead to 2 within the first minute of the fourth quarter on a pair of free throws by Arnzen and a putback by Baerlocher. Grangeville’s Kevin Allen scored a pair of free throws but Baerlocher answered with another driving lay-up which he converted into a 3-point play to cut the lead to 35-36 with 4:03 left. Grangeville then went into a spread offense to protect their lead and got a lay-up out of Kaschmitter. Prairie cut the lead back to 1 when Arnzen grabbed a loose ball in key and put it in for a basket with 2:52 left. Brad Mundt then scored a free throw and Grangeville rebounded the miss and tried to run down the clock. Alex Frei fumbled a pass out near midcourt and Prairie got a turnover on an over-and-back call with 1:24 left. Prairie worked the ball around and with 1:08 left, Baerlocher penetrated and drew the defense, then pitched the ball out to Crane who was a good 3 feet beyond the arc on the left wing. Crane buried the 3-pointer on what was his only real open look at the basket the entire game to put Prairie ahead 40-39. Grangeville answered right back with a lay-up by Allen that put the Bulldogs back on top with 43 seconds remaining. The Pirates then ran down the clock to 21 seconds and called timeout to set up the final play. They put the ball in the hands of Baerlocher who he dribbled around the perimeter looking for an opening or an open man. He finally came around the elbow of the key off a screen and put up a soft one-hander that bounced twice on the rim and fell through. When Grangeville got a timeout called there were just 1.4 seconds left on the clock. Prairie then called a timeout once they saw how Grangeville was set up. The Bulldogs tried a long baseball pass to Kaschmitter was stationed at the foul line but Brent Frei broke up the pass and cradled the loose ball to his chest as time ran out. Baerlocher ended up with a game high 20 points with Arnzen scoring 10, Crane 7, Doyle 3 and Jake Chaffee 2. Mundt led Grangeville with 14 with Allen scoring 11. Kaschmitter was held to just 6 points thanks to foul trouble and an outstanding defensive job by Arnzen. Prairie held a 24-15 rebounding edge, 7-3 in the critical fourth quarter. Arnzen had 10 rebounds to lead the team with Baerlocher adding 5 and Crane 4. Crane had 2 steals and Baerlocher had 4 assists and Doyle had 3 assists. Prairie was 17 for 38 from the field in the game, 45%, and a perfect 5 for 5 at the line while Grangeville was 17 for 34 from the field, 50%, and 5 for 8 at the line. The difference came down to three 3-pointers for Prairie to two for Grangeville. Prairie 17 9 2 14 -42 Grangeville 15 10 9 7 -41 Prairie-Crane 3-8, 0-0, 7; Chaffee 1-3, 0-0, 2; Baerlocher 8-16, 3-3, 20; Doyle 1-2, 0-0, 3; Arnzen 4-8, 2-2, 10; Frei 0-0, 0-0, 0; Forsmann 0-1, 0-0, 0; Riener 0-0, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Crane, Baerlocher, Doyle. Grangeville-McCulley 0-0, 0-0, 0; Mundt 6-11, 1-2, 14; Frei 2-5, 2-2, 6; Allen 4-9, 2-2, 11; Kaschmitter 3-6, 0-2, 6; Mignerey 1-2, 0-0, 2; Lind 1-1, 0-0, 2; Macy 0-0, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Mundt, Allen. Potlatch ends Prairie's season The Prairie Pirates came up 7 points short of a state tournament berth as they lost 53-60 to Potlatch Saturday, Feb. 28 at Lewiston. The third place finish at District still equals the highest finish for the Pirates in the past 22 years. They finished third in 1985 and fourth at least 3 times since then.  Prairie
spent the entire first half of the game struggling with their offense as
most of it came from the free throw line where Matt Baerlocher was 9 for
10 and the team was 10 for 12.
Prairie attempted just 14 shots in the first half while being fouled on 4 of those. Potlatch meanwhile got 4 of their first half baskets off the offensive glass and three 3-pointers helped the Loggers take a 16-27 lead at the half. The Loggers continued to pound the offensive boards in the third quarter as they built their lead to 20-35 with 5:17 left in the quarter. Prairie then started to find the hoop as Baerlocher score on consecutive possessions to cut the lead to 11. Tyler Crane then finally got an open look from 3-point range as his defender fell down and the lead was cut to 10. After a Potlatch lay-up, Prairie put together a 5-0 run to cut the lead to 6. Baerlocher hit a 3-pointer then converted just 1 free throw on a 3-shot foul. Chad Arnzen added a free throw to cut the lead to 32-38. Potlatch then answered with a 0-7 run to push the lead back to 13 at 32-45 with 42 second left in the quarter. Crane then converted a free throw as Potlatch’s Brandon Larson got hit with a technical for taunting. Then to end the quarter Crane swished a shot from just inside the half court line to cut the lead to 36-45. Potlatch scored a basket to open the fourth and Matt Forsmann answered with a 3-pointer on an inbounds play. After another Potlatch basket Crane swished a 3-pointer from about 30 feet out and followed that up with another 3-pointer from about 23 feet out to get the Pirates within 4 at 45-49. At that point Potlatch coach Ron Lovell switched his top defender, Cody Morgan, over to Crane and Crane wasn’t able to get the ball again in shooting position. Potlatch meanwhile converted both ends of a 1 and 1 to get the lead back to 6 but a driving lay-up by Jacob Riener and a pair of free throws by Shane Doyle pulled the Pirates within 2 points at 49-51. Potlatch came right back though with a 0-5 run that was ended when Doyle pumped in a 3-pointer from the corner. On Prairie’s next trip down the court Doyle had another 3-point attempt rim out that would have cut the lead to 1. Potlatch rebounded and Morgan wound up at the line for 2 free throws. With 13 seconds left Baerlocher was fouled on a 3-point attempt and needed to make all 3 to get the Pirates within a 3-pointer of the lead. He missed the first though and made the second. He missed the third intentionally and Potlatch rebounded, leading to 2 more free throws for Morgan that ended the scoring. Baerlocher wound up with a game-high 20 points for the Pirates while Crane scored 13. Jake Chaffee, Doyle and Arnzen had 5 points each, Forsmann 3 and Riener 2. Potlatch had a 23-28 rebounding edge. Baerlocher had 8 to lead Prairie with Arnzen adding 5 rebounds. Baerlocher had 3 steals and 2 assists. Prairie was 14 for 37 from the field in the game, 38%, and 18 for 26 at the line while Potlatch was 20 for 43 from the field, 46%, and 16 for 20 at the line. With the loss Prairie ends their season with a 19-6 record. Prairie 8 8 20 17 -53 Potlatch 16 11 18 15 -60 Prairie-Crane 4-7, 1-2, 13; Chaffee 2-3, 1-2, 5; Baerlocher 4-13, 11-16, 20; Doyle 1-4, 2-2, 5; Arnzen 1-5, 3-4, 5; Forsmann 1-2, 0-0, 3; Frei 0-0, 0-0, 0; Riener 1-3, 0-0, 2. 3-pointers-Crane 4, Baerlocher, Forsmann, Doyle. Potlatch-Griswold 4-6, 3-4, 13; Larson 2-4, 4-4, 8; Morgan 1-10, 6-6, 8; Moore 7-11, 2-4, 16; Murray 4-10, 1-2, 9; Smith 2-2, 0-0, 6; Pollock 0-0, 0-0, 0. 3-pointers-Smith 2, Griswold 2. |
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