Bigfork hands Lady Hawks first loss

Both the Thompson Falls girls and boys basketball teams ran into a buzz saw last week, aka, Bigfork.

For the girls the 64-16 loss to the Lady Valkyries was the first time this year they tasted defeat and it was against the same powerful team that derailed their unbeaten mid-season record last year.

For the boys it was part of a tough week for the Blue Hawks, who were also beaten by the league leading Valkyries by a nearly identical score as were the girls, 61-17.

The girls would recover and post a pair of wins, a 59-20 road win over Libby Saturday evening, and a slim 51-48 triumph over St. Ignatius, also on the road.

The boys, however, lost two relatively close games, falling to Libby, 59-51, and St. Ignatius, 55-43 in a strange scoring affair.

Saturday night in Libby, the Lady Hawks looked to shake off their loss to unbeaten Bigfork, last year’s Western7B champs, and it was missionaccomplished as they hammered the Lady Loggers 59-20.

T Falls built a comfortable 19-8 first quarter lead using their aggressive defense and rebounding superiority to put Libby in an early hole. The Lady Hawks continued the attack in the second quarter by outscoring the host team 20-5 to amass a 39-13 halftime advantage.

It was more of the same for Thompson Falls in the third quarter where they added nine points to their lead on the way to the commanding Western 7B win.

The victory raised the Lady Hawks record to 6-1 on the year and 4-1 in conference play, while Libby’s girls fell to 1-9 on the season and 1-4 in the league.

Thursday night the Lady Hawks hosted league leading Bigfork, which came in unbeaten on the year and left unbeaten on the year.

The Lady Valkyries jumped out to a 20-5 first quarter lead and never looked back, indicating they are once again a state playoff contender. By halftime the visitors had accumulated a 45-12 lead.

Bigfork’s swarming defense shut down T Falls in the third quarter while scoring 12 points themselves, giving them an insurmountable 57-12 lead heading into the final eight minutes of play. Bigfork standout Braedon Gunlock led her team’s victory with a game-high 24 points.

The Lady Hawks opened last week with a tough game in St. Ignatius against the Lady Bulldogs and escaped with a narrow 51-48 win. The two teams battled back and forth the entire game, with T Falls holding a razor thin 13-12 win after the first quarter of play. That lead would grow to four points, 22-18 at the half.

The second half was even closer than the first as both teams scored 15 points in the third quarter. St. Ignatius outscored T Falls by one, 15-14 in the final eight minutes, but could not overtake the victorious Lady Hawks.

T Falls’ boys, meanwhile, closed out the week with a close 59-51 loss to Libby on the Loggers home court.

The game was close most of the way with Libby taking a 31-24 halftime lead, then holding off several T Falls rallies on their way to the 7B win. Libby’s Tyler Anderson scored a game-best 25 points to pace the Loggers to their first conference win of the year and as they squared their season mark at 5-5.

T Falls was led by senior forward Jesse Claridge’s 13 points. The Blue Hawks also got 12 points from Bryson LeCoure in the loss.

As was the case with the girls, the Bigfork boys bolted out to a commanding 25-4 lead at the end of the first quarter, then piled it on in the second period to build a 49-7 lead over the Blue Hawks in Bigfork.

Isak Epperly led all scorers with 15 points for Bigfork, while Breck Ferris had five to lead T Falls.

In what was one of the more bizarre games of the season, neither T Falls nor St. Ignatius scored in the first quarter of their game Tuesday night on the Bulldogs home court, which ended in a 0-0 tie.

In an addition to the strange start, both teams scored 26 points in the second quarter, creating a 26-26 deadlock at halftime. The Blue Hawks and Bulldogs followed that tie with another 8-8 stalemate in the third quarter, creating a 34-all situation with one quarter to play.

St. Ignatius finally found a way to pull away from the Blue Hawks in the final eight minutes, outscoring T Falls 21-9 in the fourth quarter to secure the win and end the odd statistical toss-up that existed for three fourths of the game.

Claridge paced the Blue Hawks with 15 points, while LeCoure added 11 to the T Falls total.

Thursday the Blue Hawks and Lady Hawks are at home to face Libby. They both take the short hop Friday down Highway 200 for their second head-to-head meeting with Sanders County rival Plains, in Plains.