Thompson Falls boys finish 4th at divisional tourney

If the roller coaster ride ends with fans thinking it was worth the price of a ticket, most would call that a successful run.

And despite being eliminated in the consolation round of the Western B Boys Divisional basketball tournament Saturday morning by a 49-39 score courtesy of the Missoula Loyola Rams, most fans would likely agree the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks had a good run and the price of the ticket was money well spent.

Frenchtown High School was the host of this year’s Western B Divisional, which brings together the top four finishers in the 6B and 7B conferences with the goal of finding the two top teams to send to the upcoming Montana State B championship tourney.

In the end, both state qualifiers this year were from the Western 7B district, sending Bigfork and Eureka to Bozeman and ending what has been an up-and-down year for the Blue Hawks.

In their only other 7B conference encounter this year, the Blue Hawks prevailed 50-41 on their home court against the Eureka team.

But this is tournament time and tournament time can be, well, like a carnival ride.

So it was for the Blue Hawks Saturday morning as both teams took the court holding out hope they could work their way through the consolation rounds and possibly earn the right to challenge the loser of Saturday night’s consolation final with the Division’s second berth at the state tourney the prize both coveted.

This time, at tournament time, the Rams built an early lead as caffeine fans were still blowing on their concession stand coffee to cool it off while Loyola carved out a 16-7 first quarter lead.

The Missoula-based Rams would then pad their early lead by outscoring T-Falls 7-3 in the second quarter as both teams struggled to get their offense on track. At the halftime break, Loyola held a 23-11 lead.

Fueled by the scoring of senior guard Nathan Schraeder, the Blue Hawks controlled the third quarter 20-11 and cut the Loyola lead to a single point, 34-33, heading into the final eight minutes of regulation play.

Schraeder, who concluded his solid basketball career with the final buzzer, scored a game-high 18 points but it would not be enough to hold off the Rams. They outscored Thompson Falls 15-8 in the fourth quarter and punched their ticket to the consolation final later Saturday night.

The Rams fell 70-59 to Florence-Carlton in the console finale, relegating them to fourth place in the eight team tournament.

And for Thompson Falls, it marked the end of a season in which they finished 13-12.

Jesse Claridge joined Schraeder in double-figure scoring with 10 points. Loyola had three players score in double digits, led by 12 points each from Noah Haffey and Reynolds Johnson.

Bigfork defeated Eureka 55-51 in the championship game with both teams advancing to the state tourney in Bozeman March 10-12.

T-Falls concluded the well-attended Divisional tourney with a 1-2 record.

The Blue Hawks opened tournament play Thursday afternoon, going up against eventual finalist Florence-Carlton, who prevailed 61-38.

That game was close early as the Falcons eked out a narrow 11-10 first quarter lead. The Falcons were able to get their offense going a little better in the second period of play and found themselves ahead 25-18 at the halftime break.

From there it was all F-C as the Falcons controlled the third and fourth quarters of the game by 18-10 margins to secure the victory and advance to the semi-finals. Levi Posey scored a game-best 18 points to lead the Florence-Carlton offense.

Claridge scored 13 points to pace the Blue Hawks.

The loss on opening day of the tournament sent the Blue Hawks into the consolation rounds, beginning with a Friday morning encounter with Deer Lodge from the 6B conference. The Wardens came into the tournament with the only sub-.500 season record among the eight teams.

Shaking off the disappointment from their loss a day earlier, Thompson Falls jumped out to a 12-6 lead, then increased the advantage to 27-17 by the end of the first half. The Blue Hawks got an offensive boost from Claridge, who scored 25 points for the game, enough to match the 25 tallies from Deer Lodge’s Logan Nicholson.

The Wardens and Nicholson shaved six points off the T Falls lead in the third quarter, but T Falls took control over the final eight minutes of play to hold off the Deer Lodge rally and keep their tournament hopes alive.

But the eventual outcome meant the ride was over.