C-Falls blasts Broncs

COLUMBIA FALLS — This is our house! This is our house!

That was the chant from the Columbia Falls student section during Saturday night’s boys basketball game.

The students were right — Larry Schmautz Memorial Court is their house — and the Wildcats owned it with a 72-23 nonconference victory over visiting Frenchtown.

The Wildcats (1-0) were led by junior guard Nick Emerson with 14 points and12 rebounds, and senior guard Mitchell Wassam with 13 points.

But they had a total of eight team members in the scoring column and scored nearly as many points in the first quarter — 21 — as the Broncs did in the game.

This one was out of control early — Columbia Falls led 47-13 at half and passed the 40-point margin for the continuous clock with 2:42 left in the third quarter.

The Wildcats also held Frenchtown scoreless in the fourth quarter.

“Everyone out there has bought into (coach Cary) Finberg’s (philosophy), which is to play defense. We stress on the defensive end and that led to transition baskets for us,” Wassam said.

“It’s hard (in a game like that) to not get out of control and get sloppy. We had to stress being disciplined,” he added.

“To come out the first night and jell like that ... it’s hard to do that your first game. Hopefully, we didn’t peak. We’ve just got to continue to practice hard and play together as a team,” Wassam said.

Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg was hard pressed to find anything wrong with the Wildcat performance as they outrebounded Frenchtown 38-17, had just seven turnovers while causing 24 for the Broncs, and dunked the ball twice. Emerson got the first — with 1:14 left in the first half and junior Kaleb Johnson got the second midway through the fourth quarter.

Austin Barth and Johnson each had four blocks.

The only area that appeared less than perfect was free throw shooting — the Wildcats were 9-for-16.

“Our free throw shooting is ... we’re going to need that in close games,” Finberg said.

“But other than that, it was a pretty dang good first game. I was happy that a lot of kids contributed and got a lot of time.

“Frenchtown is coming off a state champion football season, so they’ve still got their football legs a little bit, but on our part, I was happy with the way our kids competed,” Finberg said.

“I thought we shared the ball well and took care of it. We’ve got a chance to be pretty good and tonight was a good first step,” he said.

“Our athleticism and our size is more than we’ve had in the past. If we can translate that into being a successful basketball team, that’s the main thing. Tonight was a good place to start,” the coach added.

“I thought defensively we had some lapses early. Part of that is we’re playing a week earlier than we normally do and part of that is not having the number of practices that we normally would have... but it’s hard to argue with only giving up 23 points,” Finberg said.

“But it gets tougher from here. Dillon next week is going to be a good test for us.”

That will be a rematch of last year’s Class A state championship game.

Frenchtown     4     9     10     0 — 23

Columbia Falls     21     26     15     10 — 72

Frenchtown — Jake Anderson 1 4-6 6, Richard Weber 2 0-0 5, Brydon Peacock 1 0-0 3, Jackson Mahlum 1 2-4 4, Austin Blank 1 2-2 5. Totals 6 8-13 23.

Columbia Falls — Kyle Howell 3 0-0 7, Nick Emerson 6 2-2 14, Chris King 3 0-2 6, Tim Spencer 4 0-0 8, Austin Barth 3 3-4 9, Mitchell Wassam 6 0-0 13, Kaleb Johnson 3 0-2 6, Michael Williams 2 4-6 9. Totals 30 9-16 72.

3-point goals: Frenchtown 3 (Weber, Peacock, Blank), Columbia Falls 3 (Howell, Wassam, Williams). Total fouls: Frenchtown 18, Columbia Falls 15. Fouled out — Weber.