Dragons boys stop Colfax; Bulldogs will face Crusaders

St. George’s boys dropped Colfax 70-54 Tuesday in the semi-final round of the NE tournament at West Valley. The Dragons posted an early lead over the Bulldogs and kept building it for most of the game.

St. George’s remained undefeated at 22-0. They will play Liberty in Saturday’s NE title round, and they figure to arrive at the state show with one of the the top billings for the big trophy campaign.

Liberty edged the LRS Broncos in the other semi game to get the entry into Saturday’s NE title match against the Dragons.

Colfax boys now face a two-game test to get to the state show. They face Northwest Christian, a 68-63 consolation winner over Reardan, today in an elimination game.

Playing opposite the Colfax-NWC game will be LRS and Davenport.

Survivors of today’s two elimination games will play Saturday for the third and last NE ticket to the state show.

Tuesday St. George’s started with a 20-12 lead over the Bulldogs after the first quarter. They kept up the offensive pressure while playing stiff defense against the Bulldogs. The Dragons booked 24 fouls on defense and Colfax dropped 21 foul shots, not enough to offset the 27 shots the Dragons hit from the floor against the Bulldog defense.

St. George’s had a 37-28 edge at break and added six more to the gap in the third quarter.

Ben Adams and Erik Farias each scored 17 point to lead the Dragons.

Caleb Berquist continued his strong season-end run by leading the Bulldogs with 17 points before he had to leave the action with five fouls.

Colfax junior Carson Cloaninger, who rated duo coverage from the Dragons’ defense, finished with 13 points.

Colfax advanced to Tuesday’s semi round after a 66-40 win over Davenport in last Thursday’s quarterfinal at West Valley.

The Bulldogs started with an 18-6 blast over the Gorillas in the first quarter. Cloaninger hit 31 points in the quarterfinal with another seven three-pointers in one game.

The Gorillas were led by 13 from Peyton Buchannan.

The loss put Davenport in the consolation round where they eliminated Asotin by a 10-point margin Tuesday.

Colfax today will face a NWC team which plucked a 63-60 comeback win over the Bulldogs when they visited Colfax in the lone league matchup between the two teams Jan. 12.

Colfax 66-Davenport 40:18/6 23/11 15/6 10/17: Bennet Gray 1 (3pt) 0-0 3, Jaydon Soncarty 2 1-2 5, Carson Cloaninger 12 (7 3pt) 0-0 31, Brett Kincaid 1 0-0 2, Cal Gregory 2 (3pt) 0-0 5, Kelan Becker 1 0-0 2, Chase Baerlocher 1 0-0 2, Austin Ring 1 0-0 12. Total 25 3-4 66. Davenport Peyton Buchanan 6 (3pt) 0-1 13 Jay Burt 1 0-0 2, Zach Cannon 1 0-0 2, Andrew Duff 1 (3pt) 0-0 3, Jaden Flett 5 2-2 12, A.J. Floyd 4 0-0 8. Total 18 2-3 40.

St. George’s 70-Colfax 54: 20/12 17/16 18/12 15/14: Soncarty 0 5-8 5, Cloaninger 4 (2 3pt) 3-4 13, Berquist 4 (3pt) 8-8 17, Gregory 5 3-5 13, Lorenzo Torlai 1 0-2 2. Total 15 21-31 f-15 54. St. George’s Ben Adams 6 1-2 17, Erik Farias 6 (3pt) 4-8 17, Noah Halliburton-Link 4 0-0 8, Cade Peplinski 3 0-0 6, Nick Watkins 1 0-0 2, Xander Werkman 4 0-0 8. Total 27 11-18 f-24 70.