Bear Lake overcomes slow start to earn title rematch with Sugar-Salem

NAMPA — After 12 months, countless hours in the gym and hundreds of games played, Idaho girls’ 4A basketball is right back to where it was a year ago — with Bear Lake facing Sugar-Salem for the state championship.

Bear Lake punched its return ticket Friday night, beating the Timberlake White Tigers 48-42 at Skyview High School.

For nearly an entire quarter, though, it looked like the Bears might come up short of earning that championship rematch.

After more than seven minutes of play, the Bears were scoreless, despite getting the looks they wanted. Things got so dire, head coach Ken Wells called for a timeout with 16 seconds left in the opening quarter.

His message to the team? “Just stay the course.”

“We missed, I’m not kidding you, 10 layups. And that’s bad, that’s tough,” he told EastIdahoSports.com after the game.

Star forward Halle Wells admitted that there was some concern.

“There’s a little panic,” she said through a smile. “It was tough, but we just pushed through, calmed down and trusted each other, and it worked out.”

The Bears scored just two points in the first quarter, coming on an Avery Hunter layup with 30 seconds left. But the effort on defense never faltered, and they trailed just 10-2 after eight minutes of play.

Halle took over in the second, scoring eight of her 17 points in the period, to go with six from Peyten Crockett, and Bear Lake, improbably, found itself up 22-21 at halftime.

Ken called his team’s effort, after the horrendous start, “unbelievable.”

“Our girls are fighters,” the coach said. “They didn’t want to lose. They didn’t stop fighting for it. They knew what they had to do.”

The Bears actually threatened to pull away in the second half. But every time they had the chance, Timberlake’s Macy Murphey drilled a crushing 3-pointer. The Junior connected on five of them in the game, finishing with 17 points.

Behind Murphey, the White Tigers not only stayed close, they reclaimed the lead in the fourth.

The player Bear Lake relied on to keep them patient when they couldn’t get the lid off the basket early was the player who took over the assignment of staying attached to Murphy in the fourth.

For so many players, especially young ones, the response to a scoring drought is to increase the aggression — to speed things up. But point guard Brooke Boehme seemed to further slow things down for her team, to inject patience rather than pressure.

Then, she took over the Murphey assignment late and silenced the lights-out shooter.

As an exclamation on a night that brought far greater impact than her stat line would suggest, the junior knocked down a huge triple to bring the lead back to her team’s side near the midway point of the fourth quarter — it was Boehme’s only points of the game, to go with four assists and three steals.

“She doesn’t get riled up — sometimes I want her to,” Ken said. “She’s just calm as can be, stuck a big three at the end and played great defense.”

Following a quiet third quarter, Halle once again took over late, dropping seven more points in the fourth quarter to help Bear Lake secure the win. She said after the game that she knew she needed to get assertive on the offensive end, but didn’t want to negatively affect her team’s offensive flow in doing so.

She finished the game with 17 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks.

The Diggers beat Bear Lake, 47-41, in the championship game last season. And they didn’t wait long before doubling down, traveling to Montpelier and beating the Bears on their home court in November.

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But this rematch is the one that matters. It’s the one Halle said her team has known would bring the end of the season.

“We’ve been working toward this the whole season,” she said.

Asked how they can swing the outcome, the junior forward said her team will have to stick to the game plan offensively and not let the Diggers dictate what they do. Defensively, they have to slow Andee Petterson and Tasha Larsen — force the third and fourth options to score.

Ken said it could be as simple as the Bear busting out of their slumber.

“We need to play better,” he said. “We need to make our shots — we’ve shot terribly from outside lately, but maybe tomorrow’s our day.”

The Diggers’ last loss came on Feb. 3, 2024 — more than two years ago. The Bears will play in their third state championship in as many years — having last won a banner as the 2A champion in 2024.