State A tournament tips off today
Plenty has changed since the season started.
As the Class A boys’ state tournament opens today in Butte, both Columbia Falls and Polson hope that their teams have improved for the better in that time, as they’ll both be facing demons from the season’s first weekend.
On December 10, just the second game for both teams and the final day of the Northwestern/Southwestern A Tip-Off tournament, both the Wildcats and Pirates had previews of their state tournament openers. And they didn’t go well.
Columbia Falls was torn apart by Stevensville, losing 67-48 and putting heaps of doubt on how well the Wildcats would play to defend their state title from last year. Polson didn’t fair much better, losing to Dillon 53-42.
“Obviously they beat us the first time pretty solidly,” Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg said. “We’re a different team than we were at that time. We’re playing a lot better defense. We’re just looking forward to the challenge because they’re a quality team.”
The Wildcats have steadily improved as the season has rolled along, sweeping through the conference to finish 17-3 this season. Stevensville, 18-3, finished second in the Southwest, losing to Dillon 66-50 in the divisional championship and beating Corvallis 55-42 in the challenge.
“We’re looking forward to playing in the state tournament,” Finberg said. “We’re looking forward to playing better against them than we did the first time.”
“We’re looking to go down there and play better. If we play like we’re capable of playing, I have all the confidence that we’ll be playing Friday night.”
Coming off a state championship run last season, the Wildcats have the one thing most others don’t at this season’s tournament — experience.
“We have kids that have been there, that know the routine and know what it takes to be successful at the state tournament,” Finberg said.
“Obviously anybody you play there is going to be a good team. We just need to be ready to go.”
Polson’s season hasn’t gone quite as smoothly. Just as the Pirates were starting to get into a groove, they lost senior center Tyler Krell to a season-ending injury. Heading into divisional, they had lost five straight and were reeling.
“We turned it around,” Polson coach Brad Pluff said. “We kind of changed the way we play. We slowed it down a little bit and are trying to play better defense. Our scores indicate that. I think our biggest point total of the weekend was 40.”
The Pirates’ biggest output of the weekend was against Libby in the consolation final, where they put up all of 42 points to beat the Loggers. They beat Whitefish 40-35 in overtime of Monday’s challenge game to seal up the second seed from the Northwest.
“The kids are ecstatic about getting there,” Pluff said. “It took a little while to buy into the new philosophy that we adopted after Tyler got hurt. We struggled shooting the ball. I think they’ve bought in now and they’re having fun again.”
A side affect of their slow pace has been close games. Two of their four games at divisional came down to the wire, beating Libby 33-32 in the opener and the overtime thriller against Whitefish in the challenge game.
“Going into the weekend we hadn’t won any close games,” Pluff said. “It was good to get that under our belt, to get the intensity up, those close game, pressure situations. Now we know what it feels like and hopefully we’ll react accordingly if it comes up again.”
This is the third straight season the Pirates have made the trip to state, giving them one a handful of experience to build on.
Dillon, the team they’ll face in the first round, has experience too, returning four starters from a team that finished second in the state last season.
“They’re a very good team and I’m sure they’ve improved since the beginning of the year,” Pluff said. “Our work’s cut out for us that’s for sure.”
In the first meeting, Polson played without two of its top players, Vince DiGiallonardo and Ian Laimbeer, who were taking SAT’s at the time. This time they’ll be back, but Polson will certainly miss the inside presence of Krell.
“We’re not going to go in intimidated,” Pluff said.
Polson tips off the tournament against Dillon at 2 p.m. today at the Butte Civic Center. Columbia Falls will start its game against Stevensville at 6:30 p.m.
The other teams playing at the tournament are Laurel, Livingston, Browning and Billings Central.