Snowed under ... Cardinal men get cold late, fall to top-ranked Badgers

COEUR d'ALENE — On a given night, you can do anything defensively and a team just gets going offensively. 

And for a two-minute stretch in the second half on Saturday, it was the top-ranked (in NJCAA) Snow Badgers, despite North Idaho College's best effort. 

"There's a reason they're the No. 1 team in the country," Symons said. "They execute, they shoot the ball really well and run their stuff and make their shots. Our guys battled and a couple of things didn't go our way down the stretch. The guys battled and it was a hell of a game by both teams. They just made some big shots at the end." 

Sophomore Vaughn Weems, who finished with a game-high 38 points, hit a jumper to cut the deficit to 78-76 with 5:22 remaining. Snow scored eight straight, capped by 3-pointers by Chance Trujillo and Isaac Finlinson to stretch the advantage to 86-76.  

"We've got to be better on the defensive end," Symons said. "We had a lot of guys in foul trouble and had five guys in foul trouble in the first half. We've got to figure out how to stay out of that and compete. Down the stretch, we needed those guys." 

NIC led most of the first half, taking a 44-42 lead at halftime after leading by as much as six midway through the first. 

"Those guys are very talented and Corey does such a good job with them," said third-year Snow coach Andrew May, a previous assistant coach at Dixie State and BYU with coach Dave Rose, as well as Salt Lake Community College. "He does some very impressive stuff. It was a really physical game with a lot of free throws and super physical. But I thought our guys competed and made some free throws down the stretch to close it out." 

Weems entered the game leading the nation in scoring with 27.9 points per game. 

"He's a handful," May said. "He's an extremely talented player and I'm impressed with his game. Every team in our league has to deal with him in one aspect or another. Guys try a bunch of different things on him to see what sticks. Obviously, 38 tonight doesn't stick, but I also think we guarded well down the stretch." 

NIC fell in Ephraim, Utah, 88-81 to Snow on Jan. 16. The teams will meet again on March 1 in the regular season finale. 

"I told the guys, obviously we wanted to win this game because it was a big game," Symons said. "But all you've got to do is beat them once at the regional tournament. And we've got to do our work to hold home court in the next three games and see if we can get into that tournament. And anything can happen that weekend." 

Southern Idaho (19-5, 7-2) beat Utah State-Eastern (9-9, 2-6) 94-61 in Twin Falls in other conference play on Saturday. 

CSI, which is second in the conference, visits NIC next Saturday at 3 p.m. 

SNOW 

Mark Brown 5-12 8-9 19, Chance Trujillo 3-7 3-5 11, Isaac Finlinson 8-15 6-6 27, Sean Felts 3-3 1-3 7, Isaac Garrett 4-8 5-6 14, McCaden Adams 4-9 2-2 12, Coleman Ford 2-5 0-0 5, Kyle Lemke 2-3 0-2 4, Aaron Bliss 2-3 0-2 4. Totals 31-62 25-33 99. 

NORTH IDAHO 

Vaughn Weems 14-22 8-9 38, Deng Diew 7-10 5-9 19, Ne'quan Brown 2-6 2-2 6, Dace Pleasant 2-7 0-0 4, Tayshawn Colvin 3-7 3-4 10, Jeremiah Sibley 1-2 0-1 2, Sam Marbury 1-3 0-0 3, Jacori Ervin 0-0 0-0 0, Bryce Henry 0-0 0-0 0, Ajayi Simmons 2-5 2-2 6. Totals 32-62 20-27 87. 

Halftime — NIC 44-42. 3-point goals — Snow 12-31 (Brown 1-4, Trujillo 2-5, Finlinson 5-9, Garrett 1-4, Adams 2-5, Ford 1-4), NIC 3-13 (Weems 2-5, Brown 0-1, Pleasant 0-3, Colvin 1-2, Sibley 0-1, Simmons 0-2). Rebounds — Snow 33 (Trujillo 11), NIC 31 (Diew 7). Assists — Snow 13 (Garrett 4), NIC 4 (Pleasant, Colvin, Sibley, Brown 1). Team fouls — Snow 27, NIC 26. Fouled out — Lemke, Diew. 

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