Thompson Falls boys earn No. 2 seed in Western B

Things pretty much followed the script at the boys 7B District basketball tournament this past weekend in St. Ignatius.

In the championship game, top seeded Eureka, unbeaten in regular season 7B play, faced second-seed Thompson Falls, which was 8-2 in the league, both of those losses coming at the hands of Eureka.

So it was not a major surprise when the Lions won the District tournament title over Thompson Falls, 58-50 Saturday evening at Mission High School.

What may have been an eye-opener was the margin of victory.

In their two regular season games, Eureka won by 28 and 18 points.

Saturday it was down to eight points, and the Lions had to weather a strong second half rally to get the win.

The top-seed Lions and number two-seed Blue Hawks both advance to the Western B Divisional tournament this coming weekend at Salish Kootenai College in Pablo. The T Falls boys will face Florence-Carlton at 9:45 a.m. this Thursday (Feb 22), while the T Falls girls will face the Florence-Carlton girls at 8:15 p.m., also Thursday.

The boys, who advanced to the championship round following a 60-37 semi-final victory Friday over Sanders County rival Plains, fell behind Eureka 17-5 after one quarter of play. The Lions then extended their lead to 28-12 by outscoring Thompson Falls 11-7 in the second quarter.

But the second half was a different story as the Blue Hawks out-pointed Eureka 21-16 in the third quarter to cut the lead to 44-33. T Falls trimmed another three points off the lead in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough to overcome their large first half deficit as Eureka held on for the win.

"It would have been a heck of a story if we had pulled off the comeback," Thompson Falls coach Jake Mickelson said. "It would have been the stuff of legends."

The win lifted the Lions to 16-3 on the year after they won the 7B regular season title with a 10-0 mark. T Falls dropped to 12-8 on the year. The Lions earned the number one seed out of 7B, while T Falls got the second seed.

Plains, the third seed and St. Ignatius, fourth seed, also qualified for the Divisional tourney.

Bryson LeCoure led the Blue Hawks in scoring with 17 points. The Hawks also got 10 points from senior Nick Tessier.

Kaden Vaughn led all scorers with 20 points for the Lions. He was joined in double digit points by Tristan Butts (13 points) and Braden Casazza (12 points)

Eureka out-rebounded T Falls 32-28.  LeCoure led the Blue Hawks with eight rebounds, while Max Hannum and Braedon Ferris each grabbed seven boards.