Maidens, Lady Pirates win; play Saturday
WHITEFISH — Kailynn Marengo hit two 3-pointers and scored 12 points, and the Ronan Maidens built upon a 10-point halftime lead to beat Whitefish 49-37 in a Northwest A girls basketball play-in game Thursday.
Ronan (7-12) will play at Polson (10-9) Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Polson pulled away to beat Libby 39-32 Thursday.
The winner of that game takes the Northwest A’s No. 4 seed into next week’s Western A Divisional. That means a first-round matchup with Southwest A No. 1 seed Frenchtown.
Ronan 49, Whitefish 37
Marengo had eight of her points by halftime while Ronan built a 26-16. The gap grew to 37-20 on a Neveah Perez basket midway through the third.
Perez finished with nine points off the bench and Zailee Hewankorn had 11 for Ronan.
Camry Kelch scored nine in a reserve role to lead Whitefish, which ended up 6-13.
Ronan 11 15 11 12 - 49
Whitefish 6 10 13 8 - 37
RONAN — Maddie Illig 5, Lauryn Buhr 4, Arianna Zepeda 4, Zailee Hewankorn 11, Kailynn Marengo 12, Neveah Perez 9, Kylee Kelch 4.
WHITEFISH — Yoli Krastev 3, Madi Gordon 2, Jude Perry 6, Bailey Smith 7, Ainsley Scott 6, Charlie Ullrich 1, Carmelle Alfieri 3, Camry Kelch 9.
Polson 39, Libby 32
POLSON — The Lady Pirates led 27-16 and then Libby went on an 11-0 run bridging the third and fourth quarters.
Madison Vincent hit one 3-pointer to start the Loggers (1-18) back, and another to cut the gap to 27-25 with 5:55 left in the game.
A putback by Libby’s Bergen Fortner tied it with 5:20 remaining, but Rylee Taylor-Jefferson answered with a bucket for Polson, and McKenna Hanson stole the ensuing inbounds pass and got a free throw out of it.
Taylor-Jefferson’s 3-pointer with 1:38 left put Polson up 35-29. She had 20 points. Vincent scored 12 for Libby.
Libby 5 9 8 10 - 32
Polson 9 9 9 12 - 39
LIBBY — Madison Vincent 12, Kaydence Stanek 5, Bergen Fortner 2, Rylee Delmas 7, Rachel Kosters 6.
POLSON — Julia Bernard 2, Rylee Taylor-Jefferson 20, Samantha Rensvold 3, Aleysia Black 3, McKenna Hanson 9, Ahri Rushing 2.