Sentinel slams Flathead
The only baskets Missoula Sentinel seemed to miss were in warm-ups.
The Spartans shot 78 percent from the floor as a team and nearly achieved the 100-point mark before calling off the dogs and settling for a 88-54 Western AA boys basketball victory over the Flathead Braves in an offensive-showcase on Tuesday night at Flathead High.
Riley King scored 14 of his 21 points in the first half, Ben Roberts tossed in 18 and Trevor Olson followed with 15 for the explosive Missoula squad which has now won four straight and five of the last six.
“We were super active on defense and it led to a lot of easy shots, so when that happens you build a rhythm off those easy shots and you start sharing the ball and everybody keeps building that rhythm,” Sentinel head coach Craig Matosich said.
Flathead went shot for shot with Sentinel in the first half and finished the game with 10 3-pointers and hit 50 percent from the floor overall in the game. Senior Tanner Salois made his first five shots to help keep the Braves in it and finished with four 3-pointers and 18 points overall while sophomore George Sherwood followed with 13 points.
By halftime, both teams had combined for 12 3-pointers with Sentinel holding a 48-31 scoring lead in the shootout.
“I thought going into the season they’d be No. 1 on our side, and they certainly haven’t disappointed me. They showed they can play tonight,” Flathead head coach Fred Febach said.
“If you leave them open, they flat drain it and that’s what they did tonight. I thought we hung with them early on for the first few minutes and then a five-point advantage for them jumped to a 10-,15-point advantage in a heartbeat, and that was more or less the game from there.”
Sentinel (5-4) improved to a conference-leading 4-0 while Flathead dropped its conference opener and sits 2-4 overall.
The Braves ran out of gas in the third quarter, managing only eight points while the Spartans fast-pace athletes continued the unrelentless offense that finished with a 72-39 advantage heading into the final eight minutes.
“It was kind of like a my-turn offense out there; ‘OK, it’s my turn to score,’” Febach said of Sentinel. “And the only way you slow that down is you have to be more solid in your possessions and certainly we didn’t help ourselves in that regard.”
Joe Pistorese came in off the bench for Flathead and scored eight points with two 3-pointers included.
“I thought (Flathead) shot it pretty well today and they haven’t been, so our plan was to try and let them shoot it from outside and they did,” Matosich said. “But it was nice to be able to sit there and make them do that because we played such good offense and had that lead.”
“We shot pretty well but the problem is when you’re down that far you still have to get stops and we failed to do that so I was disappointed defensively,” Febach said. “Offensively in the first half, yeah we hit some shots, but then again, hey you still have to play both ends of the floor.”
Flathead heads to Missoula Big Sky on Friday for another conference showdown at 7:30 p.m.
Missoula Sentinel 27 21 24 16 — 88
Flathead 15 16 8 15 — 54
SENTINEL — Robby King 2 0-2 4, Zack Wagenman 2 1-2 5, Connor Woodill 2 4-4 8, Kendal Maier 4 1-1 9, Ben Roberts 5 7-7 18, Trevor Olson 6 1-1 15, Brad Corntassel 0 2-2 2, Riley King 9 0-1 21, Fischer Worden 3 0-0 6, Zack Murphy 0 0-0 0, Nate Jewett 0 0-0 0. Totals 33 16-20 88.
FLATHEAD — Tanner Salois 6 2-3 18, Ian Gillespie 1 0-0 3, Karl Ingram 2 0-0 4, Joe Pistorese 3 0-0 8, George Sherwood 4 2-2 13, Connor Tice 1 2-2 4, Jeremy Grosswiler 2 0-1 4, Dean Stimpson 0 0-1 0, Mike VanArendonk 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 6-9 54.
3-point goals — Sentinel 6 (King 3, Olson 2, Roberts), Flathead 10 (Salois 4, Sherwood 3, Pistorese 2, Gillespie); Team rebounds — Sentinel 20 (King 6, Woodill 5), Flathead 18 (Ingram 5); Team turnovers — Sentinel 11, Flathead 11; Team fouls — Sentinel 16, Flathead 16; Fouled out — None.