NAMPA — The Hillcrest Knights will play for a third straight 4A championship on Saturday.
Hillcrest downed Bishop Kelly 76-46 in Friday’s semifinal, showcasing a balanced offense that set the tone early as the Knights jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter and led by as many as 33 points.
The win sets up a third consecutive championship game matchup with Pocatello, which beat Ridgevue 82-46 in Saturday’s early semifinal.
Hillcrest and Pocatello have seemingly been on a collision course since last year.
“It’s going to be fun,” Hillcrest coach Dave Austin said. “We’re looking forward to it and I know they’re looking forward to it as well. It’s just going to be a matter of coming out and playing relaxed. There’s no pressure. We just have to play our tempo, our style that we want to play. We know that we can take care of business when we play that way.”
Isaac Davis led the way with 29 points and eight rebounds. He hit 14 of 16 shots. Gavin Hepworth and Talan Taylor also had eight rebounds.
“This has been our goal,” Davis said of playing for another title. “I feel like we earned it.”
Hillcrest (19-6) led early but Bishop Kelly closed the gap to 26-18 midway through the second quarter. Momentum shifted back to Hillcrest on a lob to Davis for a dunk forced a timeout by Bishop Kelly. Hillcrest led 36-22 at the half as Davis had 12 points.
Hillcrest, the highest-scoring team in 4A at nearly 72 points per game, had little trouble as its offense kept the ball moving, taking perimeter shots when open and working inside to Davis, who has been nearly unstoppable when playing at the Idaho Center the past two seasons.
But it may have been the defense that proved the difference.
“I loved their tenacity,” Austin said of the team’s defense. “Our guys got after it tonight. We talked about how we needed to defend and that was going to be the key to this game. These guys were all over the place.”
Bishop Kelly shot 27% for the game and hit just eight field goals in the second half.
Hillcrest’s schedule included two wins over Preston, which has been state-ranked all season and won the South East Idaho Conference regular season and beat Pocatello. Pocatello, however, won the district tournament to clinch the state berth.
Pocatello will be trying to avoid its own 3-peat on Saturday.
“That target on our back is huge,” Austin said. “We’ve talked about it all year and that’s what we want. We want everybody’s best game and we want to be challenged in every game.”
Ike Sutton finished with 12 points and five assists and Titan Larsen added 11 points for Hillcrest.
The 4A championship game is 6 p.m. at the Idaho Center.
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