Cardinals advance to regional championship game

Twin Falls- The NIC Cardinals advance to the championship game and remain undefeated at 31-0 by beating beat Snow College in a close 77-73 battle in their first regional game.

The Cardinals squared off against Snow College for the second time in six days. The loudest and most excited people in the arena were the Cardinal players themselves.

Right from the start, the Cards bench was clapping and chanting “Defense” and “D-up, D-up, D-up,” and it seemingly inspired the team. Their hands were up and active on defense. If they weren’t forcing Snow College to shoot awful attempts, they were getting in the passing lanes and getting steals leading to easy baskets.

Coach Corey Symons was substituting players in and out the entire game, almost hockey-like.

“We are so deep. We were just trying to find a rhythm. It is tough to coach a team full of great players, because everybody deserves to play,” coach Symons said. “We have so many great players that we never know who is going to step up.”

The Card’s bench tallied 33 points, 19 of them belonging to freshman Trey Burch-Manning.

He was an instant spark off the bench and during one stretch of the first half Burch-Manning accounted for nine straight Cardinal points, and collected rebounds on both sides of the court at the same time.

“I was in the zone there for a minute,” Burch-Manning said. “My teammates were finding me in open spots for open shots.”

With a little over eight minutes left in the game the Cardinals increased their lead to 70-49, but it was far from over.

Snow College was resilient and stole the momentum by going on a 24 to 5 run, making it a 75-73 game with 5.4 seconds left. Snow College then regained possession, and had a chance to tie the game or take the lead.

Sophomore Lucas Antunez chases down a Snow College player during a 24 point run that Snow accumulated toward the end of the game. Antunez put up eight points, four rebounds and two steals by the end of the game. “finals are made to win so we’ve got to focus on not making mistakes,” Antunez said. (Riley Hadeen/Sentinel)

Once again The Card’s defense answered with authority, by forcing a Snow College player to step out of bounds on his own baseline just feet away from a potentially tying the game.

Brayon (BJ) Blake squashed Snow College’s last minute efforts by knocking down a couple free throws and sealed it as a 77-73 victory for the Cards.

Blake had a strong outing and finished the game with a double-double, 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Even with the Cards blowing a 20 point lead, they remained in good spirits and were genuinely having fun out on the court.

A jovial Trey Burch-Manning gets ready to put some points up for the Cardinals. Burch-Manning had an impressive performance against Snow with 19 points and seven rebounds for the night. (Riley Hadeen/Sentinel)

“Every game that’s our goal we write on the board; to have fun, play as a team, and just do what we do. We’re 31 games into it, and we’ve have had fun for 31 games,” Said Blake. “Go Cardinals and shout-out to the support of Coeur D’ Alene, and we are bringing the championship back home.”