Ladyhawks heat up

Weekend victories over Troy, 43-19, and Eureka, 44-36, gave the Thompson Falls girls their first back-to-back wins this season. With a victory in either of their final two conference games, the Ladyhawks can guarantee they will enter the District 7-B tournament in no lower than third place.

On Thursday, the Ladyhawks defeated the winless Trojans for the second time by both beginning and ending on high notes.

Despite playing Thompson Falls tight during the middle quarters, trailing only 12-13 over that span, Troy had no answer for Thompson Falls’ first and fourth quarter flurries in which they were outscored by a combined 7-30.

Ladyhawk head coach Jason Reimer was pleased with his team’s ability to generate turnovers with their full court pressure, and the even distribution of scoring.

“Early in the season we were relying on two or three players to carry the team and now it doesn’t seem to matter who’s on the floor, they’re playing hard and scrappy,” Reimer said. “Different girls pick it up on different nights.”

Kelsey Fitchett scored 13 points to lead the Ladyhawks (3-3 conf., 4-7 ovr.). Makayla Becker chipped in nine points, Allison Vaught scored eight, Hope Reid seven and Kayla Stark and Mara Hanks scored two each.

Kimmy Klin scored eight points to lead Troy (0-6, 0-10).

Saturday was a day of redemption for Thompson Falls who not only defeated a Eureka team which had bested the earlier in the season, but had not surrendered a loss to the Ladyhawks on their home court for as long as Reimer can remember.

“That locker room after the game against eureka was a fun, fun place to be, because on their faces you could tell that they felt like they had really grown up as a team that night,” Reimer said.

Little went as planned in the first quarter as the Ladyhawks committed nine team fouls, and failed to capitalize on Eureka’s poor shooting, emerging with a 4-2 lead. The Lady Lions did not make a single field goal in the opening period.

In the second quarter, Thompson Falls was forced to abandon its press defense and sit two starters, Reid and Vaught, who had each committed three fouls. Despite their struggles, the Ladyhawks entered the locker room with a 20-17 halftime lead.

“Our big theme this week was to play 32 minutes,” said Reimer. “We’ve been in this position in Eureka three years in a row, wether we’re up three or down two and then we go in the second half and we get blown out. This year we managed to go in and pull it off.”

Reimer’s Ladyhawks came out with a purpose in the second half and outscored Eureka 13-8 in the third, before breaking even with the Lady Lions in the fourth quarter to come away with the win.

Becker took Reimer’s advice almost too literally, playing 31 of 32 minutes and scoring 15 points to lead Thompson Falls. Vaught was also in double digits with 10 while Fitchett score eight, Mara Hanks seven and Reid four points for the Ladyhawks (4-3, 5-7).

Alyssa White scored 10 to lead Eureka, which shot just 16 percent from the floor as they dropped to 2-5, 2-8.

Although Reimer admits his team is much improved from where they were at the beginning of the season, he still feels they have not yet reached their potential.

This week, the Ladyhawks host Columbia Falls on Thursday and Bigfork on Saturday.