Lady Hawks take second in 7B tourney

Form held in the girls Western 7B conference tournament this past weekend as the top-seeded and once-beaten Bulldogs from St. Ignatius beat No. 2 seed Thompson Falls for the league title Saturday night at Mission High School in St. Ignatius.

T-Falls finished conference play with an 8-2 record, while St. Ignatius was 9-1. Both of T Falls' losses were against St. Ignatius during the regular season, while the Bulldogs lost only to Eureka, the league’s third seed.

And Eureka beat Plains for third place and the third seed to the Divisional tournament at Salish Kootenai College in Pablo this coming weekend. Plains, which finished fourth in the league standings, gets the fourth seed.

During the regular season, the Lady Bulldogs won both of their games versus T Falls girls by 26 and 21 points.

The championship game was more competitive and the two teams battled for four quarters.

St. Ignatius opened the game by taking a hard-fought 15-12 lead over the Lady Hawks by the end of the first quarter.

The Bulldog defense then held T Falls to six points in the second quarter while the offense scored 11 to stretch their halftime lead to 26-18.

The second half was pretty much even up for the top two teams, with the third quarter an 11-11 draw that produced a 37-29 Bulldogs lead heading into the final quarter of play.

The home standing Dogs added four points to their lead in the final eight minutes of play to produce the 12 point win.

T Falls now faces Florence-Carlton in the Divisional round this Thursday at 8:15 a.m. at SKC. St Ignatius takes on Deer Lodge, also Thursday, at 11 a.m.

Lady Hawks sophomore forward Gabbi Hannum tied for game-high scoring honors with 13 points. Kason Page also had 13 for St. Ignatius, and was joined in double digit scoring by Ellannah Flat Lip (11) and Izzy Evans (10).