Columbia Falls drills Ronan, 64-36

It was vintage Wildcat basketball.

Rebound, take care of the basketball and share the scoring.

Columbia Falls (17-2) did all of those things in Friday’s 64-36 Northwestern A divisional semifinal win over fifth-seeded Ronan (7-13).

The win puts Columbia Falls into tonight’s championship game against the Polson Pirates. Game time is 7:30 p.m.

The Wildcats kept the turnovers to a minimum, had four guys in double figures and unofficially outrebounded the Chiefs 30-14.

“We better (outrebound the Chiefs). That’s been a strength of ours all year. We have the kids to do that,” said Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg.

“They’re good. They’re physical and they can shoot. They’re the real deal,” said Ronan coach Steve Woll of the Wildcats.

“I thought our kids fought hard. They didn’t back down, but we couldn’t score against them,” he said.

“We were so outsized — a buck 45 against 225. Rebounding killed us. We just don’t have the size to bang with them,” Woll said.

“Austin Barth and Kaleb Johnson caused them a lot of problems down low,” Finberg agreed.

“They changed a lot of shots and blocked a lot of shots.

“I thought defensively we played very well. Defensively, I’m extremely happy with the way we played. Offensively, we had our moments. For the most part, we took care of the ball,” Finberg said.

“We turned it over a little bit too much in the first half. But other than that, I have no complaints.

“(The Chiefs) ... they’re very quick and active. They cause a lot of those turnovers because of their effort,”  the coach added.

“But again, no complaints. Our effort was very good. Defensively, I thought we owned the paint and I thought that was the key,” he said.

Columbia Falls had the lead the entire way — Mitchell Wassam scored nine of his game-high 16 points in the first quarter as the Wildcats built a 13-9 advantage.

Ronan’s points were all on 3-pointers — one each from Marcus Hungerford, Jerod Tanner and Lucas Black.

“They hit some threes on us, but we forced them into some tough ones. They didn’t get too many putbacks and second chance points,” Finberg said.

“We let them get some open shots,” junior post Kaleb Johnson said.

“But after that, we just shut them down. We rebounded the ball well,” he said.

“We rebounded the ball, kept our turnovers down, played a solid game,” agreed sophomore post Austin Barth.

At halftime, the lead was 10 points.

Ronan felt pretty good about that.

“I liked our chances coming out the second half ... and then we didn’t execute. We didn’t play very good defense,” Woll said.

“We were hoping to get transition points. They took that away from us. They took our transition game away. You have to have the ball to run. If you don’t get it on turnovers or rebounds, it’s hard to run. End of story there,” he  said.

For their part, the Wildcats stuck to their original plan.

“We just picked up our intensity and rebounded the ball. Played Wildcat basketball,” Johnson smiled.

It was Johnson who stepped up in that period — with eight of his 12 points. Barth scored four in the quarter and finished the game with 13. Kyle Howell added another 10.

Lucas Black paced Ronan with 10 points.

“Our team can do that. Anybody can score,” Barth said.

Ronan plays Whitefish at 10:45 a.m. today. If it wins that one, it will take on Libby in the consolation game at 4 p.m.

“I thought our seniors really stepped up for us,” Finberg said.

“You’re going to go as far as your seniors take you. They’ve got us on the doorstep. Now we’ve just got to go through it,” he said.

Ronan     9     10     8     9 — 36

Columbia Falls     13     16     15     20 — 64

Ronan — Jerod Tanner 2 3-4 8, Chris Clary 1 0-3 2, Brady Oakland 1 1-3 3, John Buckendahl 1 0-2 2, Marcus Hungerford 1 0-0 3, Kevin Wroblewski 2 0-0 5, Lucas Black 4 0-0 10, Colten Cheff 1 1-1 3. Totals 13 5-12 36.

Columbia Falls — Michael Williams 1 0-0 2, Kyle Howell 4 0-0 10, Mitchell Wassam 6 4-6 16, Kaleb Johnson 5 2-2 12, Austin Barth  5 3-5 13, Nick Emerson 2 1-1 5, Jacob Calderwood 1 0-0 2, Anthony Correa 1 0-0 2, Tim Spencer 1 0-0 2. Totals 26 10-14 64.

3-point goals: Ronan 5 (Hungerford 1, Moss 1, Black 2, Wroblewski 1), Columbia Falls 2 (Howell 2). Total fouls: Ronan 16, Columbia Falls 16. Fouled out: None.

Polson 55, Libby 37

Louis Mohr scored 16 points, nine in the third quarter as the Polson Pirates rallied from a 23-17 halftime deficit on Friday to defeat the Libby Loggers 55-37 in the semifinals of the Northwestern A divisional basketball tournament.

The Pirates (11-8) outscored Libby 21-2 in the third period and 38-14 in the second half.

 Sheldon Fisher added 11 points for the Pirates, who face Columbia Falls in tonight’s championship.

Alex Cislo scored 18 for the Loggers (8-11).

Libby 14     9     2     12 — 37

Polson 10     7     21     17 — 55

Libby — TJ Benson 2 0-0 4, Cree Maloney 1 0-0 2, Kelly May 0 4-4 4, Colton Cannon 1 0-0 3, Nate Broden 1 0-0 2, Alex Cislo 9 0-1 18, James Hare 2 0-0 4. Totals 16 4-5 37.

Polson — Vince DiGiallonardo 2 0-0 4, Kyle Bagnell 2 2-4 6, Sheldon Fisher 4 0-0 11, Tim Rausch 3 2-4 9, Louis Mohr 6 1-1 16, Derrick Rathe 1 1-2 3, Tyler Krell 3 0-2 6. Totals 21 6-13 55.

3-point goals: Libby 1 (Cannon), Polson 7 (Fisher 3, Rausch 1, Mohr 3), Total fouls: Libby 11, Polson 8, Fouled out: None.