Helena teams stand in Glacier's way
Glacier's Rachel Cutler looks for an open teammate while guarded by Flathead's Sam Thompson during a game on February 5 at Glacier High School.
The Glacier basketball teams have reached the crossroads of the season and hope to continue on into Billings for the AA state tournaments.
But first they have to get through Helena.
The Glacier boys (7-5 in conference, 13-7 overall) are eyeing their second-straight trip to the state tournament and host the Bengals (6-6, 9-11) tonight at 6.
Meanwhile, the Glacier girls are still after that first tourney berth and have a rematch of last year’s playoff game. In Helena this time around, the Wolfpack (2-10, 6-14) and Bengals (9-3, 12-8) tip off at 7 p.m.
The regular season standings in Western AA didn’t settle until the final game, and in that case the Wolfpack boys wish they had a do-over. Glacier turned in its lowest offensive output of the season — 45 points — and dropped a fateful game to Flathead. The loss went on to give the Braves (7-5, 11-8) third place and the Wolfpack fourth because of Flathead’s season sweep of Glacier.
“They’re fine. I think they’re going to come in and play very well,” Glacier coach Mark Harkins said. “They were all very disappointed with the Flathead loss, but I haven’t heard one mention of it since. After Friday, we talked about letting it go and they’ve been great about focusing on Helena.”
Glacier and Helena split during the season with both teams winning on their respective home courts. On Jan. 30, the Wolfpack coughed up its worst offensive night of the season up to that point in a 56-46 loss. The roles reversed almost three weeks later when Glacier showed an impressive display on defense and cuffed the Bengals 58-43.
Offense is usually the Wolfpack’s strong suit (Glacier averages 58 points per game), but that hard-nosed defense is what Harkins believes will earn the team a ticket to Billings next week.
“They know that if you want to go to the state tournament you have to be able to play good defense,” Harkins said.
The Wolfpack brings into tonight’s game four players who had significant roles on last year’s hallmark team, which earned the first state tournament appearance in the program’s short history. Seniors Connor Fuller, Shay Smithwick-Hann and Logan Quay and junior Colter Hanson are the team veterans while senior Freddie Blodnick has good varsity experience under his belt as well. Senior Grahm Schmaltz earned his way into the varsity starting lineup this season after playing junior varsity all of last year.
With a solid core of players returning along with a hardy group filling in the cast, Harkins said this year’s team is different from last year’s squad in a good way.
“The biggest difference is that we’re much more balanced this year,” he said. “Last year we had Ben (Cutler) and Shay and everybody knew it. This year I think we’ve had seven or eight different guys leading in scoring. We’re so much more balanced and I think it makes us a little bit tougher to defend.”
Fuller, who was injured in last Friday’s game, returned to practice on Wednesday and will play today.
The Glacier girls find themselves on the road as the underdog this year. This time last season, the Wolfpack finished in fourth place with a 5-7 conference record and hosted the fifth-place Bengals, also 5-7, in the deciding playoff game. Helena ended up spoiling Glacier’s bid at making state with a 62-57 victory, and the Bengals have dominated the Wolfpack ever since. This season, Glacier lost both games to Helena — 44-32 at home, 50-28 on the road — and finished in sixth place while Helena earned third.
“I think I’m probably going to remind them that last year (Helena) came here and they were in our position,” Glacier coach Kris Salonen said. “This time we’re the underdogs. Hopefully we can do the same thing.”
Although the Glacier girls have lost six straight heading into tonight’s game, they have shown signs of turning it around. On the road against the top team in the West, Helena Capital, Glacier kept right up and lost by only four, 41-37 on Feb. 21. The same happened against second-place Missoula Sentinel on Feb. 9 when the Wolfpack lost by only five, 45-40. But then last Friday, the Wolfpack’s offensive woes came back to haunt the girls as they lost to Flathead, 33-21.
“We’ve been just trying to get some things rolling offensively,” Salonen said.
“I really think we’ve been plugging away and the kids have a great attitude ... It just depends on which team of ours shows up.”
NOTES: Admission for the tonight’s games at Glacier and Flathead is $6 for adults and $4 for students per MHSA guidelines ... Kalispell has never had more than one school represented at the AA state basketball tournament.