High octane Hawks

BUTTE -The Glacier Wolfpack finally got a taste of its own medicine courtesy of Tanner Roderick and the Bozeman Hawks.

Halfway through the first quarter, Roderick caught a full-court, one-handed pass from point guard extraordinaire Gabe Rucker and laid it in for the exclamation point on a 7-0 run.

And from there, the Hawks did what few teams were able to do this season "C out run and out gun the Wolfpack.

Roderick, a sophomore, went off for 14 of his team's 31 points in the first quarter and Bozeman scorched Glacier 80-58 in the opening round of the Class AA state boys basketball tournament Thursday morning at the Butte Civic Center.

"Maybe we should play all our games at 9 o'clock in the morning," Bozeman coach Wes Holmquist said. "We talked about we have to do to get off to a good start and I think we did. We knew Glacier was good, we knew they could score, and I think we did a pretty good job of trying to shut them down."

Roderick finished with a game-high 35 points.

"The kids were pretty worked up (in the first quarter)," Glacier coach Mark Harkins said. "All year, we've done a pretty good job of when a team goes on a run, we stop it. And obviously, we didn't stop it."

The Wolfpack, making its first state tourney appearance, held its own in the opening minutes. But then the Hawks (17-5) lit the dynamite.

The Wolfpack battled back to within 9 points heading into halftime, but Bozeman opened the second half the same way it did the first one. The Hawks went on a 13-4 run to start the third and took the fourth quarter with a confident 25-point lead.

Bozeman's floor general, Rucker, dished out 9 assists in the game and kept the tempo up, which put the Wolfpack on its heels. The Hawks drained eight 3-pointers, five off the hot hands of Roderick, who made an impact on defense as well.

The 6-foot-1 guard glued himself to Glacier's scoring ace, Ben Cutler, almost the entire game. Cutler picked up his fourth foul midway through the third quarter, which forced him to take a seat, but he still managed to lead Glacier with 20 points. Connor Fuller followed with 17.

"(Bozeman was' hitting it from the outside, they're tough, they're big, they're good," Fuller said.

The size advantage definitely went in Bozeman's favor. The Hawks have six players 6-foot-4 or taller, led by 6-7 post Jacob Owsley, who finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Six-foot-five PJ Burns had 9 points and 13 rebounds and 6-6 Matt Mullins had 3 points and 11 boards.

The Bozeman goliaths crushed Glacier's inside game and held post Shay Smithwick-Hann to 7 points, his second-lowest total this season. Smithwick-Hann was still able to grab 10 rebounds.

"Our offense turned into one pass and shoot, and that's not what we needed," Harkins said. "We needed to push the ball down the floor and then run our offense, and we didn't do a very good job of that."

Bozeman entered the game as the third seed from the East, but appeared to be comfortable facing the higher seeded Wolfpack.

"Playing in the Eastern AA conference is tough," Holmquist said. "The East is stacked and I think that helps prepares us for the state tournament."

The sharp-shooting Cutler didn't nail one of his trademark treys until the final minutes of the fourth quarter. The 5-10 guard pulled up from beyond the arc and swished what could become a familiar sight in Butte next season. Cutler, a senior celebrating his birthday on Thursday, said earlier in the season he's interested in playing college basketball at Montana Tech.

The Wolfpack now find itself clinging to its season with a consolation bracket game today versus Missoula Sentinel at 9 a.m. Glacier swept the Spartans during the regular-season.

"We gotta clean some stuff up," Harkins said. "There were some things that happened on the court that weren't X¡'s and O's, weren't offense and defense. I thought we started to kind of decide everybody was going to do it on their own. We lost a little bit of our team concept, and we gotta get that back together."

Bozeman faces Great Falls C.M. Russell in today's semifinals at 3:30 p.m.

Glacier 15 15 9 19 - 58

Bozeman 31 8 25 16 - 80

GLACIER - Josh Doty 2 0-0 5, Connor Fuller 6 5-11 17, Colter Hanson 1 1-2 3, Shay Smithwick-Hann 3 1-2 7, Logan Quay 1 0-0 2, Ben Cutler 8 3-4 20, Cody Grosswiler 2 0-0 4, Ben Sansaver 0 0-2 0. Total 23 10-21 58.

BOZEMAN - TJ Leap 3 0-0 6, Tanner Roderick 15 0-2 35, Zach Brown 1 0-1 2, Will Waylander 1 0-0 2, PJ Burns 2 4-7 9, Gabe Rucker 3 2-2 9, Jake Owsley 4 3-4 11, Ty Roderick 1 0-0 3, Matt Mullins 1 1-2 3. Total 31 10-18 80.

3-point goals: Glacier 2 (Cutler, Doty), Bozeman 8 (Tanner Roderick 5, Burns, Rucker, Ty Roderick); Total fouls: Glacier 18, Bozeman 15; Fouled out: None; Total rebounds: Glacier 35 (Smithwick-Hann 10) Bozeman 49 (Burns 13, Mullins 11); Turnovers: Glacier 19, Bozeman 16; Total assists: Glacier 3 (Smithwick-Hann 2); Bozeman 14 (Rucker 9)