On the prowl: Cats nip Dogs, advance to title game

The 'Cats are back.

A year after being upset in the Northwestern A boys divisional basketball tournament by rival Whitefish, the Columbia Falls Wildcats returned the favor in heartbreaking fashion Friday at Glacier High School.

Senior Mackey Nolan hit a pair of free throws with roughly 2 minutes to go that gave Columbia Falls a two-point lead that survived the attack of No. 1-seed Whitefish, who missed a chance at tying it with a free-throw opportunity. After that, the Wildcats played the most nerve-racking game of keep-away this season and held off regular-season champ Whitefish, 58-53, in the semifinal.

Columbia Falls will play at 6 p.m. today in the divisional championship against No. 3 Polson. Whitefish goes to the consolation bracket and faces Bigfork at 9 a.m. today in a loser-out game at Glacier.

Kyle Howell hit a pair of insurance free throws, followed by a wide-open layup in the final minute for Columbia Falls, who looked like the Wildcats of old that won three state titles in the last six years. The loss snapped a 12-game win streak for the Bulldogs.

"I wasn't nervous. I knew we had it in us," said Howell, who finished with 10 points. "We struggled the past two years at divisionals, so now we're stepping up and hopefully we'll keep it rolling."

When the game ended, the Columbia Falls bench rushed onto the court with towels flying as the Wildcats fans erupted in celebration and made the final buzzer nearly inaudible.

Even several minutes later, the adrenaline still was pumping.

"It's awesome. I love it," said Columbia Falls senior Grant Getts, who scored a team-high 16 points. "We've had some lulls this season but now we're right where we want to be."

Right from the start, it was a good old-fashioned dogfight, and the Bulldogs were the aggressors. Whitefish led by as many as 8 points during the second quarter, thanks to the hot hand of senior Aaron Tkachyk, who cashed five treys in the game en route to 17 points. But the Wildcats hung around with the help of Getts' 10 first-half points.

At the end of the third quarter and during the opening of the fourth, Idol shouldered the load on offense for Whitefish after Tkachyk went down hard and came up wincing in pain as he left the court. Idol scored his team's next 8 points, and it looked as if he were providing the fireworks for the Whitefish victory.

But then the Columbia Falls student section cued the revelry, and the Wildcats came to life.

"There's 4:11 to go and we're down two [points' and I told the kids, 'Regardless of what happened the first 28 minutes, if we can play these last four minutes perfect, you're going to win the game,'" Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg said.

And they went out and did just that.

"Heart - just a lot of heart from everybody," Finberg attributed to his team's performance down the stretch. "This is a great group of kids. We were far from perfect. We made a lot of mistakes, but we did enough to win."

Freshman Austin Barth had 7 points and owned the paint for the Wildcats during the second half, but got caught with five fouls and sat out the final 5 minutes of the game. Barth's brother Tanner also scored 7 points, and Nolan finished with 5 for Columbia Falls.

Colt Idol, the conference scoring champ, was held to 14 points for the Bulldogs, well below his 20-point regular-season average. Whitefish senior co-captain David FauntLeRoy finished with 7.

"We had opportunities to tie it up down the stretch but just missed some free throws," Whitefish coach Eric Stang said. "We got a couple fouls and made some mistakes right from the start in the second half, and that kind of took a little bit of fire out of our backbone."

The Bulldogs made eight of 11 from the line, but had two misses during crunch time in the fourth quarter. Columbia Falls, on the other hand, shot a measly 12-of-22 from the charity stripe, but hit 5-for-5 during the final 3 minutes.

Columbia Falls 15 14 10 19 - 58

Whitefish 17 14 11 11 - 53

COLUMBIA FALLS - Kyle Howell 3 2-2 10, Tanner Barth 2 1-2 7, Mackey Nolan 1 3-6 5, Austin Robbins 1 1-2 3, Austin Barth 3 1-3 7, Mitchell Wassam 3 0-0 6, Kaleb Johnson 0 1-2 1, Grant Getts 7 2-3 16, Michael Williams 1 1-2 3. Totals 21 12-22 58.

WHITEFISH - Matt Whitehead 1 0-0 2, Aaron Tkachyk 6 0-0 17, Willie Roche 1 2-2 4, Josh Backer 1 0-1 2, Marc Hotzfield 1 0-0 2, Connor Silliker 2 1-2 5, Colt Idol 5 4-4 14, David FauntLeRoy 3 1-2 7. Totals 20 8-11 53.

3-point goals - Columbia Falls 4 (Howell 2, T. Barth 2), Whitefish 5 (Tkachyk 5); Total fouls - Columbia Falls 14, Whitefish 18; Fouled out - Whitefish (Whitehead), Columbia Falls (A. Barth); Total rebounds - Columbia Falls 20 (Getts 7), Whitefish 22 (Idol 4, Silliker 4)