Wildcats hold off Flathead
By DIXIE KNUTSON/The Daily Inter Lake
Smokin'.
The Columbia Falls Wildcats went to halftime Friday night holding the slimmest of leads over the Flathead Braves.
The visiting Wildcats had led by as many as nine points in the first half, but the Braves closed the gap to one point with a 7-0 run in the final 1:12 of the second quarter.
That didn't take long to fix.
Columbia Falls' Mitchell Wassam scored in the first 15 seconds of the third quarter to get things rolling and the rest of the Wildcats poured it on from there, outscoring Flathead by 15 points in the period.
From there, the Northwestern A Wildcats (2-1) rolled to a 67-49 nonconference victory over Western AA Flathead (0-2).
"They struggled shooting a little bit in the first half, but they came out smoking in the second half," Flathead coach Fred Febach said of the Wildcats.
The Wildcat scoring came from everywhere - 12 points from Mackey Nolan, 11 from Kyle Howell, 10 from Wassam and nine points from Michael Williams.
"They hit some shots early in that second half and they just got on a roll," Febach said.
"Other than that second quarter, I thought we played real good basketball," said Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg.
"About the last four minutes of the second, we got stagnant. We kind of stood around and watched a little bit.
"Part of that, we were missing some shots. The more we missed, the more we stood … instead of the more we missed, the more we attacked.
"But that's kind of the nature of basketball sometimes, if you miss a few shots, you get a little tentative. Other than that little stretch, I thought we played real good basketball," he said.
"We've got to be consistent with our effort, be consistent with our attitude. We can't let up and we can't be satisfied with the way we're playing," Finberg said.
"We've got to play better. We can always do more things and get after it a little more.
"I thought the kids came out the second half and played with a little more fire, a little more intensity," Finberg said.
With 1:32 to go in the half, Columbia Falls led 23-15.
But Flathead's Tyler Hawkins sunk a 3-pointer and George Sherwood scored four points in 29 seconds - a jumper followed by a blocked shot which he ran down himself and laid in with two seconds left on the clock.
Just like that, Flathead was back in the game.
"We were down 8 or 10, cut it to one at half. That shows a sign there … hey we can do some things," Febach said.
Karl Ingram scored 14 points, pulled down eight rebounds and blocked two shots to lead the Braves.
"We certainly need to shore things up defensively. We've got to be able to get stops when we need them and we weren't able to do that tonight.
"Certainly, much of the credit goes to C-Falls, but we need to pick it up a little bit," Febach said.
"Overall, we made some runs of our own once in awhile. But with a young team, we've got to calm down a little bit.
"What we need to do, obviously, is learn to play together a little bit. I believe we need to play better team defense," Febach said.
"But I thought the effort was pretty good out there. And like I told the players afterward … hey, we get to play again tomorrow (at Libby)."
Columbia Falls 14 9 28 16 - 67
Flathead 8 14 13 14 - 49
Columbia Falls - Kyle Howell 4 1-2 11, Tanner Barth 1 1-4 3, Nathan Trueblood 3 0-0 7, Nick Emerson 2 0-0 5, Mackey Nolan 5 2-2 12, Austin Robbins 3 0-0 6, Austin Barth 1 0-0 2, Mitchell Wassam 4 2-2 10, Grant Getts 0 2-2 2, Michael Williams 3 2-2 9. Totals 26 10-14 67.
Flathead - Danny Salois 3 0-0 7, Tanner Salois 1 2-2 5, Ian Gillespie 2 1-2 5, Karl Ingram 4 6-8 14, George Sherwood 3 0-0 7, Mike Van Arendonk 1 0-0 2, Tyler Hawkins 4 2-3 9. Totals 15 12-14 49.
3-point goals: Columbia Falls 5 (Howell 2, Trueblood 1, Emerson 1), Flathead 5 (D. Salois 1, T. Salois 1, Sherwood 1, Hawkins 2). Total fouls: Columbia Falls 15, Flathead 16. Fouled out: None.