FHS triumphs in foul fest
Karen Nichols/Daily Inter Lake<br>Flathead's Chaeney Latimer drives to the basket under defensive pressure from Big Sky's Elise Bisson in first-half play. Latimer scored 15 points.
Six ties, 13 lead changes, a total of 59 fouls and 69 free throws.
The largest lead for either team was eight points.
Oh, and six players fouled out.
It wasn't the prettiest girls basketball contest ever played.
But when all was said and done, the Flathead Bravettes defeated visiting Missoula Big Sky 59-52 Friday night.
With the win, Flathead (4-2, 8-3) moves into a tie with Sentinel for second place in Western AA.
The Bravettes were 30-for-45 from the free throw line. The Eagles had their free throw chances, too. They were 15-for-24.
"Big Sky is a good defensive team," said Flathead coach Dennis Latimer.
"That's why they ended up with a lot of fouls. You're going to earn everything you get from them."
Only four girls scored for the Bravettes - Holli Hashley netted a career-high 25, Chaeney Latimer chipped in with 15, Lindsay Bennett added 12 and Meghan O'Connell scored six.
"We played hard and stuck with it. We didn't give up once," Hashley said.
"Everybody playing hard and everybody making an effort," was the key, she added. "It was all heart tonight."
# Flathead led 32-29 at the half, then pushed that to 34-29 15 seconds into the third quarter.
But Big Sky - despite mounting foul trouble - never went away.
Both junior Julee Christianson and senior Rachele Larson were whistled for their third fouls less than two minutes into the second half.
But the Eagles not only stayed with the Bravettes, they fought back to take a 41-39 lead with 1:54 to go.
"When Larson and Christianson got into foul trouble, we just didn't get the gap in score we wanted to get," Latimer said. "I was a little nervous about that."
Lindsay Bennett's drive to the basket put Flathead back on top as the horn sounded, however, and Flathead never trailed again.
Defensively, the Bravettes went through some ups and downs.
They gave up four 3-pointers in the first quarter and one in the first four minutes of the second.
"We didn't do a very good job in that first quarter," Latimer said.
"But they never had a three in the second half," he added.
"I thought Chaeney (Latimer) did a good job guarding Christianson," he added. "We asked her to stop her penetration. She did a pretty good job."
The coach also complimented the effort of senior forward Alena Ori. Ori had two blocked shots in the final 1:30 to keep the Eagles from making any scoring inroads.
"She really came in and helped us," Latimer said.
Bravettes 59, Eagles 52
Big Sky 12 17 15 8 - 52
Flathead 15 17 13 14 - 59
Big Sky - Ashley Montelius 1 0-0 3, Julee Christianson 1 0-1 2, Rachele Larson 2 0-1 4, Kate Williams 4 1-2 12, Rachel Hansen 1 0-0 3, Elise Bisson 1 6-7 8, Leslie Boyd 1 1-1 3, Emily Schwenk 1 3-5 5, Kailey Hays 2 0-0 4, Rebecca Weber 2 4-7 8. Totals 16 15-24 52.
Flathead - Chaeney Latimer 4 6-10 15, Holli Hashley 7 11-15 25, Meghan O'Connell 0 6-6 6, Lindsay Bennett 3 7-10 13. Totals 14 30-45 59.
3-point goals: Big Sky 5 (Williams 3, Hansen 1, Montelius 1), Flathead 1 (Latimer). Total fouls: Big Sky 35, Flathead 24. Fouled out: Larson, Williams, Hansen, Hays, Lidstrom, Newgard.