Loggers upend Valkyries

The Daily Inter Lake

BIGFORK - Jackie Mee made a clutch free throw in the final minute of play en route to 20 points and the Libby Loggers held off the Bigfork Valkyries 43-37 Tuesday for a Northwestern A basketball victory.

The Vals trailed by three points with 30 seconds to go, but Mee got to the line and put the Loggers up by four and forced the Vals to turn the ball over in a quick scoring attempt.

"I thought they kind of jumped out on us in the fourth quarter," Bigfork coach Mark Hansen said. "They did a nice job on the defensive end and we just had a hard time executing."

Roxy Thurman led the Vals with 15 points, Mallery Knoll had eight and Kailey Fierro had seven points and seven rebounds.

"She does a lot of good things, and she creates a lot of havoc for other teams on defense," Hansen said of Thurman. "And she works hard. She doesn't have much left in the tank after games."

The Bigfork defense was able to hold Libby's high-scoring Brittany Martin to only two points, but Jaime Gilden stepped up and scored 14 for the Loggers (10-5 overall, 5-2 in conference). Bigfork (9-5, 3-3) hopes to rebound before divisionals comes around at the end of the month.

"We need to keep trying to improve as the season goes along and work at playing our best ball near the end (of the season)," Hansen said.

LIBBY 11 11 8 13 - 43

BIGFORK 10 9 4 14 - 37

Libby- Larona Luscher 3, Alyshia Martin 2, Brittany Martin 2, Jaime Gilden 14, Logan Best 2, Jackie Mee 20.

Bigfork - Mallery Knoll 8, Taylor Peck 3, Roxy Thurman 15, Caitlin Charlebois 4, Kailey Fierro 7.

Boys

Libby 46, Bigfork 39

BIGFORK - Connor Benson scored 16 points, Joel Fuller had 12 and the Libby Loggers inched ahead of Whitefish for first-place in Northwestern A with a conference win over Bigfork in a make-up game.

Libby lead early, but Bigfork came out strong offensively in the second half. The Vikings outscored the Loggers 18-16 in the third quarter and had an opportunity to draw even closer but fell apart from the free throw line. The Vikes shot 2-for-7 from the charity stripe in the fourth, and 6-for-14 overall.

"We just couldn't get our offense going," Bigfork coach Lyle Whiteman said. "Our kids played very good defense all game, but in the fourth (quarter) we just couldn't get the shots in."

Brock Boll led Bigfork, and all scorers, with 19 points.

Libby (6-2 in conference) leads a tight race ahead of Whitefish (5-2) heading into the final weeks of play. Bigfork (0-5) hopes to turn things around before heading into the divisional tournament on Feb. 26.

"We've had a lot of close games," Whiteman said. "Hopefully we'll start to get some consistency on the offensive and defensive ends and put it all together."

Libby 10 12 16 8 - 46

Bigfork 6 9 18 6 - 39

Libby - Conner Benson 16, Kelly May 5, Joel Fuller 12, Colton Cannon 6, Alex Cislo 7.

Bigfork - Garrett Pewe 3, Zac Hansen 2, Brock Boll 19, Jake Milner 6, Scott Taylor 5, Keenan Evans 2, Donny Tudahl 2.