Wolfpack net first league victory

Ben Cutler and the Glacier boys basketball team spent their holiday vacation hustling up and down the court to get in shape.

It paid off Thursday night as the Wolfpack out-ran the Missoula Sentinel Spartans in a 76-67 Western AA victory at home.

Cutler led the way with 29 points, 15 of those coming in the fourth quarter. Shay Smithwick-Hann scored 22 points and pulled in nine rebounds, Mike Rasmussen added 11 points, and the Wolfpack won its fourth in a row.

"It feels good, it's our first conference win in history, I mean, that's a good basketball team (Sentinel), and that's a good win for us," said Cutler, who upped his season average to over 26 points-per-game.

The Wolfpack played its first game since a win over Great Falls on Dec. 19, but came out fast and fresh.

"We've been running hard over the break, every practice has been up and down," Cutler said. "We don't walk the ball up the court in practice."

Sentinel's Kendal Maier led his team with 17 points, Zack Wagenmann scored 14 and Ben Roberts added 12. Riley King hit five 3-pointers for 15 points and the Spartans (5-2) dropped their first conference game to end a three-game win streak.

Glacier (4-1) capitalized from the free throw line, draining 18-of-33.

"We're really excited," said Glacier coach Mark Harkins afterward. "That's a very, very good basketball team (Sentinel), they are so athletic and everything else and for us to play well and compete and win is huge for us."

The Wolfpack led by two points at halftime after a back-and-forth race for the lead. Glacier came out with the same run-and-gun attitude in the second half and built a 14-point lead midway through the fourth quarter. The up-tempo play didn't faze the Wolfpack, which kept all of its starters on the floor for nearly the entire quarter.

"We ran quite a bit over the break, we had a lot of practices so we did a lot of up-and-down transition-type drills," Harkins said. "That's where we are at our best, is in transition. We're not real big, but we're athletic and we can run so that's our strength. So that's what we're gonna do, is make teams run with us."

Colter Hanson finished with seven points for Glacier, and Connor Fuller added four. The Wolfpack hit the road on Saturday for a non-conference matchup against Bigfork.

"We really handled their pressure, I mean they pressed us almost the whole game and we kept our turnovers down and I was pleased with that," Harkins added.

The Spartans took the lead early in the game but watched it slip away as Glacier continued to push the ball.

"I'm a little disappointed with our effort, we didn't play with the toughness that we needed," Sentinel coach Craig Matosich said. "We're not going to make every shot, not everything is going to go our way, but there are things that we can do physically - getting after loose balls, taking charges, doing stuff like that - but we didn't do that."

Missoula Sentinel 20 11 12 24 - 67

Glacier 17 16 14 29 - 76

Sentinel - Connor Woodill 1 1-3 3, Kyle Kostelecky 1 0-0 3, Zack Wagenmann 7 0-1 14, Kendal Maier 7 3-4 17, Ben Roberts 2 7-8 12, Trevor Olson 1 0-0 3, Taylor McGreevey 0 0-2 0, Riley King 5 0-0 15. Totals 24 11-22 67.

Glacier - Josh Doty 0 1-8 1, Connor Fuller 1 2-4 4, Colter Hanson 2 2-2 7, Shay Smithwick-Hann 8 3-6 22, Mike Rasmussen 4 3-4 11, Ben Cutler 10 7-9 29, Ben Sansaver 1 0-0 2. Totals 26 18-33 76

3-pointers - Sentinel 8 (King 5, Kostelecky 1, Roberts 1), Glacier 6 (Smithwick-Hann 3, Cutler 2, Hanson 1); Total rebounds - Sentinel 29 (Wagenmann 9), Glacier 27 (Smithwick-Hann 9); Team fouls - Sentinel 23, Glacier 20; Fouled out - Sentinel (Roberts, Kostelecky); Technicals - Sentinel (Roberts)