C-Falls rolls in tourney opener

For a tournament opener, Columbia Falls sure looked cool, calm and collected.

The Wildcats jumped on Ronan early, taking a quick 7-0 lead less than three minutes into Thursday afternoon's Northwestern A boys divisional basketball game at Glacier High School.

Columbia Falls pushed that advantage to 15-2 and rolled from there for a convincing 69-47 victory.

"That's the way you want to start a tournament," Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg said. "You get a big lead and relax.

"The think I like is when we built the big lead, we didn't let up," he continued.

"We were attacking offensively and defensively."

Columbia Falls had 10 players contribute to the scoring and four reached double figures - Mackey Nolan led with 14, Kyle Howell had 13, Austin Barth 11 and Mitchell Wassam 10.

Wassam led in rebounds with 11, while Grant Getts pulled down eight. The Wildcats controlled the boards 35-17.

Columbia Falls, 12-7 overall, led 30-14 at the half and 50-28 after three periods.

"They just seem like in the last couple of weeks, we've turned the corner," Finberg said.

"They kind of have a different attitude, a different mentality. They realize what we're looking for at this point of the season."

Ronan, 11-8, never got on track. While Columbia Falls went 7-for-11 from the field in the opening quarter, the Chiefs were 3-for-10. They were 5-for-20 for the half.

"The game plan kind of goes out the window a little bit," Ronan coach Steve Woll said of falling behind early.

"You start to do things that are uncharacteristic and you try to go harder. It goes south on you a little bit."

Ronan, to its credit, battled hard the entire game.

"We don't quit," Woll said.

"These kids are pretty resilient. It's pretty important to them."

Woll said when Ronan trimmed the Columbia Falls lead to 16 points in the fourth quarter, "we still thought we had a shot. We're a team capable of going on runs. If we can get the game to single digits, it puts more pressure on the other team. Suddenly their basket gets a little smaller."

But Columbia Falls would have none of that this time.

Nolan Harris paced Ronan with 11 points, 10 coming in the fourth quarter. Mike Fisher and Dallas Cordier both totaled 10.

"It was more of what we didn't do," Woll said.

"We didn't counterpunch. Defensively, we gave up layups."

Columbia Falls advances to semifinal play today against top-seed Whitefish at 2 p.m. Whitefish, 14-4, is riding a 12-game win streak.

Ronan drops into a loser-out game Saturday at 9 a.m. at Flathead High School.

Columbia Falls 18 12 20 19 - 69

Ronan 7 7 14 19 - 47

COLUMBIA FALLS - Kyle Howell 5 1-5 13, Tanner Barth 1 2-3 4, Matt Triplett 1 0-0 2, Nick Emerson 0 0-2 0, Mackey Nolan 5 4-6 14, Austin Robbins 1 0-2 2, Austin Barth 5 1-1 11, Mitchell Wassam 4 2-4 10, Kaleb Johnson 0 1-2 1, Grant Getts 3 4-4 10, Michael Williams 1 0-0 2. Totals: 26 15-29 69.

RONAN - Mike Fisher 3 3-4 10, Dallas Cordier 4 0-2 10, Justin Dustybull 1 0-0 3, Nolan Harris 3 3-5 11, Eddie Ness 2 3-3 7, Kyle Hendrickx 2 1-2 6. Totals: 15 10-16 47.

3-point goals: Howell (2); Fisher, Cordier (2), Dustybull, Harris (2), Hendrickx; Team fouls: Columbia Falls 18, Ronan 22; Fouled out: Barth; Jay Sorrell.