Glacier punches state ticket

Illness, injury, cold shooting.

You name it and the Glacier boys had it on Thursday.

But they also had Shay Smithwick-Hann, Grahm Schmaltz and the confidence of their head coach.

That’s why the Wolfpack is going back to the state tournament for the second year in a row.

Smithwick-Hann had 12 points and 16 rebounds, Schmaltz turned in seven of his 14 points in a decisive third quarter and the Wolfpack bounced back to defeat Helena High 54-42 in a Western AA playoff game at Glacier High.

Fourth-place Glacier (14-7 overall, 7-5 in conference) will face Eastern AA’s top team, Billings West (18-2 overall), in the opening round of next Thursday’s state basketball tournament in Billings. Helena (9-12, 6-6) got 15 points and 10 rebounds from Tyler Hulse and 10 points from Adam Johnson.

“I thought tonight they overcame a lot of adversity and figured out ways to make plays,” Glacier head coach Mark Harkins said of his team afterward.

“We had such a tough time shooting in the last game with Flathead and then we were 0-for-10 from behind the 3-point line in the first half here. But we just talked and said hey, shots will fall. We talk about that all the time, and we have it on the board (in the locker room), defense is going to win it for you ... We had a great defensive first half and I thought we continued to do that in the second half and then we hit some shots. And once the shots started to fall and we had some things go our way, it started to roll pretty well for us.”

But it sure didn’t roll their way at first.

Glacier lost one of its co-captains and top scorers, senior Connor Fuller, to a knee injury in the opening minute of the second quarter with the game tied at 13-all. At the same time, Smithwick-Hann, a fellow co-captain and the team’s leading scorer, was visibly ill and scoreless. And if that wasn’t enough, the Wolfpack as a whole was shooting like a right-handed team with two left hands.

The team went into the locker room trailing by two at halftime with heads down after scoring only five points in the second quarter. As a whole in the first half, Glacier shot 6-for-23 (26 percent) from the floor.

But at the same time, Helena was having its troubles on offense, only it didn’t end. The Bengals finished the game shooting 17-for-57 (29 percent) from the floor and tallied only 13 total points in the middle quarters.

“We were not hitting shots. We missed our first four layups of the second half and the guys got in panic mode a little bit and then started settling,” Helena head coach Willie Schlepp said. “That’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

“That was a big win for us. I’ve never been that sick and tired in a basketball game. But everybody stepped up,” said Smithwick-Hann, who has been battling illness all this week.

“It feels amazing, getting to state two years in a row, and as a senior it’s just that much better,” said senior guard Freddie Blodnick, who finished with two points and held the team’s offense together from the point.

The second half was a different story for the Wolfpack. With a persistent vote of confidence from Harkins, the boys kept firing and the shots started hitting, namely those from Schmaltz.

The 6-foot-0 senior, who spent last season playing junior varsity and occasionally watched from the varsity bench, awakened the Pack at the start of the third quarter with a pair of 3-pointers. That gave Glacier the lead for the first time since early in the opening quarter. It proved to be the beginning of an avalanche of scoring for Glacier as the team built a 36-26 lead at the end of the quarter.

The closest the Bengals came after that was nine with just over three minutes to play.

“Give Glacier credit, they just did a nice job tonight of withstanding. They just torched us the second half,” Schlepp said.

In the third meeting of the season between the two teams, Colter Hanson scored 10 points, Logan Quay had five and Marshall Boyland had four for Glacier.

“When Connor our emotional leader goes into a heap on the floor, we could of kinda gave it up but they didn’t,” Harkins said. “They rallied around him and I was really pleased with that ...That’s what I like about this team is they care about each other, they want each other to be successful.”

Helena    13    7    6    16    —    42

Glacier    13    5    18    18    —    54

HELENA — Tyler Hulse 6 2-6 15, Zach Hulse 2 2-5 6, Adam Johnson 4 2-4 10, Graham Bogumill 1 0-0 2, Justin Teegarden 1 0-0 2, Tyler Weideman 2 0-0 5, Dylan Simac 1 0-1 2, Josh Herrin 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 6-16 42.

GLACIER — Bryan Chery 1 0-0 3, Grahm Schmaltz 2 8-10 14, Marshall Boyland 1 2-2 4, Freddie Blodnick 1 0-1 2, Colter Hanson 5 0-1 10, Shay Smithwick-Hann 4 4-5 12, Logan Quay 2 1-2 5, Trey Griffith 1 0-0 2, Wiley Fusaro 1 0-0 2, Connor Fuller 0 0-0 0, Mario Venturini 0 0-0 0, Jacob Leininger 0 0-1 0. Totals 18 15-22 54.

3-point goals — Helena 2 (Z. Hulse, Weideman), Glacier 3 (Schmaltz 2, Chery); Rebounds — Helena 37 (T. Hulse 10, Z. Hulse 5, Johnson 5), Glacier 44 (Smithwick-Hann 16, Quay 5, Hanson 4); Turnovers — Helena 14, Glacier 15; Blocks — Helena 2 (Johnson, Bogumill), Glacier 4 (Smithwick-Hann 2, Quay 2); Steals — Helena 7 (Z. Hulse 3, T. Hulse 2), Glacier 6 (Schmaltz 2); Team fouls — Helena 20, Glacier 19; Fouled out — none.