Big night for Braves, Wolfpack
If a packed gym and a hard-fought, high stakes basketball game is your cup of tea, you might want to consider swinging by Flathead at 7 p.m. tonight for the Flathead Braves-Missoula Sentinel Class AA state play-in game.
The winner will face Eastern AA No. 1 seed Billings West at 8 p.m. next Thursday night at the Class AA state tournament.
It’ll be another full gym and another battle in Helena as well, as the Glacier Wolfpack girls (6-6) take on Helena Capital (6-6) at 5:30 p.m. The winner there will play
Eastern AA No. 1 Bozeman at 5 p.m. next Thursday.
Flathead (6-6) won both meetings this season. It beat Sentinel (5-7) 49-45 at home on Jan. 5, then claimed a 59-58 thriller Feb. 11 in Missoula.
“I don’t see either one of these two teams winning easily. It will be pretty physical. Both teams will go after each other,” said Flathead coach Fred Febach.
Febach pointed out several of the likenesses.
Each team struggled through mid-season letdowns. But toward the end of the season, both began to right the ship, Febach said.
Each has an all-state player (George Sherwood for Flathead and Riley King for Sentinel) and they each have supporting casts who make major contributions.
“We feel really good that we played well enough in conference to get ourselves a home playoff game,” he said.
Flathead expects big things from the senior Braves (Chris Cronk, Austin Jones, Sherwood, McLean, Drew Crosby, Nick James and Al Michael Olszewski) tonight.
“I expect to play a number of kids and for them to make some contributions for us,” Febach said.
Sherwood is averaging 16 points and six rebounds per game, Matt McLean adds 12 points and Shea Schroeder is pulling down six rebounds per game.
Febach said the keys for Flathead are pretty simple — rebounding, free throws and turnovers.
Flathead took great care of the ball in the early meeting, forcing 19 Spartan turnovers while committing just 11 itself.
“It will be a pretty physical game. Both teams will go after each other. I don’t think there will be a lot of slow-down type stuff. From a coaching standpoint, a playing standpoint and a spectator standpoint, this should be a real fun game,” he said.
Glacier at Helena Capital
The Glacier girls have played in five playoff basketball game since Glacier High School was built.
Coach Kris Salonen believes it is about time for the Wolfpack to win one of them.
“It’s time to get over that hump,” she said.
Against the Bruins tonight, it has a good chance.
The game can be heard on 103.9 FM.
“We match up very evenly — their posts are playing very well, so our big girls are going to have to really step up, which they are very capable of,” Salonen said.
Cassidy Hashley “has been very consistent, getting double-doubles. If we can get that from her, it will be huge,” the coach said.
Hashley recently surpassed her older sister, Emilee, as Glacier’s all-time leading rebounder.
“(Plus), we have to get things going with Nicole (Heavirland),” she said.
The teams split this season, with Glacier getting the better of the Bruins in Kalispell on Jan. 27, 50-47. Capital won Feb. 18 on its’ floor, 59-45.
“We are going to be a little more prepared than we were when we went to Helena. We weren’t ready,” Salonen said of the Wolfpack’s 59-45 Feb. 18 loss.
“We didn’t play very good defense. Our transition game wasn’t very good. We just didn’t get back,” she said.
But the good news is Glacier bounced back with a pair of wins to finish the season — and it has a full squad of healthy Wolfpack members back as well.
Rachel Chery missed that second game with an injury — and the rest of the team was in the midst of colds and flu at that point.