Blue Hawks triumph over rival Plains

One step forward, one step back has been the course taken by the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks boys basketball team so far this year.

They are hoping to head into next year with a course correction following a split of games this past week. They started the week by dropping a home game to Libby, 59-32, then followed it with a hard-fought but convincing 54-35 road triumph over Sanders County rival Plains Friday night.

Now the Blue Hawks are hoping to make it two steps forward with a game tonight at Noxon, their last contest prior to the two-week Christmas break.

The Blue Hawks opened their week of play Thursday at home against the Libby Loggers and got off to a quick 3-0 lead on the strength of a three-pointer by senior guard Nathan Schraeder.

However, a few trips up the court later, Libby countered with a three of their own and took a 5-3 lead. The Loggers then went on a three-point binge, scoring a trio of shots from beyond the arc on their way to a 15-3 lead with 2:16 to play in the opening quarter.

A couple of late quarter two-pointers helped the home team Blue Hawks close the gap to 15-7 at the end of the first eight minutes of play.

The second quarter was nearly identical to the first as both teams traded three-point plays via either long outside shots, or free throws on the end of a fouled while shooting play.

By halftime Libby had padded its lead to 28-16.

Thompson Falls made a brief run at the leaders in the opening minutes of the third quarter, buoyed by better rebounding success against the taller Loggers. But Libby fought off that charge and regained their rebounding edge on the way to a 40-22 lead heading into the final eight minutes of play.

The Loggers then outscored T Falls 19-10 in the fourth quarter to seal the conference win against the Blue Hawks and square their season mark at 2-2.

Libby forward Caden Williams led all scorers with 18 points. Josh Wilhite paced the Blue Hawks offense with nine.

Thompson Falls then traveled the 24 miles down Highway 200 Saturday evening to face the struggling Plains Horsemen and were able to fight off the underclassmen dominated Plains team.

In that encounter, the Blue Hawks ruled the first quarter of play against the mostly sophomore and freshmen Horsemen, who are winless so far this season. T Falls rolled to a 13-4 lead after the first quarter of play and never looked back on the way to pushing their season record to 3-2 with one game to play before the semester break.

Both teams played even up the second quarter, which saw the Blue Hawks add two points to their lead by outscoring Plains 11-9.

At the half, Thompson was up 24-13.

The Blue Hawks pretty much put the game out of reach for the Horsemen in quarter number three, out-pointing the host team 19-6 to build a 40-19 lead with one quarter to play.

Plains fought hard in the final eight minutes and trimmed five points off the Blue Hawks’ lead but it was not enough to overcome the T Falls lead.

Thompson Falls has one game remaining before the two-week break, a road game tonight (Tuesday) against the Noxon Red Devils. Plains, meanwhile, closes out its pre-break schedule with a home game against Bigfork tonight in Plains.