Keeping Score: Basketball Divisional thrillers and state tournament preview

Welcome everybody to another Keeping Score podcast presented by Corwin Motors. This week it is all about what happened at divisionals, with plenty of close games and team’s punching their ticket to state, so let’s get into the highlights you might have missed. 

My game of the week was a matchup that took two overtimes to decide a winner, and, in the end, Frenchtown came out on top over the Bigfork Vikings. 

Cooper Michaud’s put-back gave Frenchtown the lead for good in the second overtime, and the Broncs eventually beat Bigfork 60-59 in an important loser-out game at Columbia Falls High School. The win clinched a berth into next week’s State A tournament for Frenchtown.   

Bigfork led 47-45 on Alex Ochs’ three-point play with 1:09 left in regulation; Hank Smith, who had 22 points for Frenchtown, hit a 15-footer moments later to set up the first overtime.   

Austin Savik had a game-high 23 points, making five 3-pointers for Bigfork, which ended up 9-14. Tamret Savik added 14 points and Ochs had 12 for the Vikings.  It was a tough loss to end the season for Bigfork. 

The Valkyries won their Thursday matchup against Butte Central 51-24 before dropping a game to Dillon who was the eventual winner of the divisionals, 57-49. This all set up a crucial game with Columbia Falls. 

Keni Wade led Bigfork with 18 points — including five 3-pointers — as the Valkyries jumped out to a 12-0 lead after the first quarter to beat rival Columbia Falls 52-32. The good news for the Wildkats is they played well enough in the tournament to finish as the No. 4 seed, so the loss only affected seeding as they already placed for state.  

Onnikka Lawrence helped Columbia Falls score the first six points of the second quarter and Kierra Kemppainen led the Wildcats with nine points. Paeten Gunlock finished with 15 points and sister Braeden added 11 for Bigfork who finished as the No. 3 seed in the West and are returning to state for the fourth straight season, second as a Class A team. 

On the boy's side for Columbia Falls, they picked up a win on Thursday over Butte Central 64-51 before losing to Dillon Friday 62-41. This set up another crucial game against Ronan where the Wildcats lost a heartbreaker 55-54.  

Jhett McDonald poured in all 14 of his points in Ronan’s fourth-quarter comeback, which was capped when Chad Higgins rebounded a miss by Tayan Edmo and scored with 16.6 seconds left to clinch a state berth.  

Columbia Falls had two final shots at the win — a Reggie Sapa 3-pointer and a follow shot from Grady Hutton — but both hit back iron and fell away.   

Easton Brooks had 11 points for the Wildcats, who after taking a 16-13 lead at the end of the first quarter, didn’t trail again until Higgins’ put-back. Cooper Ross added 10 points off the bench for Columbia Falls, which ended their season with a 16-5 record.  

Ronan lost a tough matchup in another classic game Thursday against Frenchtown where the Broncs pulled off the win in overtime 64-62 but they got their revenge on Saturday.  

Laurence Lozeau scored 18 points, Tayen Edmo added 17 more and Ronan claimed third place over Frenchtown. Lozeau hit an early dagger 3-pointer in the fourth as he put Ronan up 60-42. The Chiefs knocked down 10 shots from behind the arc.   

PHOTOS: Western A basketball tournament in Whitefish

Browning boys came into the tournament as the No. 1 seed and will advance to state, but the Browning girls did not. The boys won their matchup on Thursday over Hamilton 51-41 behind Jude Reevis’ 19 points. Reevis once again led Browning to another win on Friday, scoring 16 points in a 64-47 win over Frenchtown, that punched their ticket to state. 

In Saturday’s matchup with Dillon for the Western A crown, Dillon outlasted Browning 63-48. The Indians came out hot, with a trio of early 3-pointers — two from Jude Reevis and one from Roy Madplume — to take a 15-4 advantage but then Browning went cold.  

A 19-2 run for the Beavers put them ahead 25-17.  Reevis kept the Indians in it with a pair of big triples to cut the gap to 30-26 at intermission. The Beavers came out of the break hot and quickly pushed the lead to double digits at 37-26 and never looked back. 

There were a lot of games at divisionals and this was just a recap so be sure to check out the sports section at the Daily Inter Lake for full game stories from the tournament that lasted three days as there were a lot of great games.  

Now before we wrap this episode up, let’s give you a preview of the state matchups this week and what local teams are still alive. 

On Thursday the Ronan boys who finished 16-6 will take on 16-5 Billings Central at noon. Later on, Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Browning at 14-6 will faceoff with 18-4 Glendive. 

On the girl's side, 19-3 Bigfork will kick things off early Thursday morning with a 9 a.m. game against 18-3 Havre. 12-10 Columbia Falls will have a matchup with undefeated Billings Central at 5 p.m. 

That is going to wrap up this special divisional episode. Good luck to all those teams advancing to state and congratulations to the rest of those teams at divisionals on a great season. I want to thank our sponsor Corwin Motors and thank you all for tuning in, we will see you all next week on another episode of the Keeping Score podcast. Take care.  

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