Lady Pirates drop Vals but have trouble with 'Dogs

POLSON - The Lady Pirates held off a surging Bigfork team last Thursday to get the 49-46 win, but didn't have enough gas in the tank to beat Whitefish, going 1-1 in conference play for the week.

The Lady Pirates looked strong defensively against Bigfork, and made the offensive points when they needed to late in the game, including a three-pointer by Strohm Fouty with 34 seconds left to give the team the go-ahead lead.

Fouty had 10 points on the night, while Kari Mowbray had 12 and Kara Huyser had 13. However, the Lady Pirates relied more on defense than offense to get the job done.

"Right now our strength is our defense and rebounding. Offensively, we are struggling with consistency. We need to be consistent for 32 minutes," said head coach Bruce Thomas. "Some of it probably had to do with the break over Christmas, too."

Polson had trouble hitting the outside shot early in the game until Jenni Nesladek drained a three in the first quarter. Jen Orchard followed by hitting a buzzer-beater three-pointer to end the quarter, giving Polson their first lead of the game, 12-11.

Fouty and Orchard gave the Vals fits on defense, and had multiple steals during the game.

Foul trouble proved to be a factor in both games, though, with Huyser taking a seat on the bench in the second quarter, leaving Mowbray to take up the slack underneath against Bigfork.

Orchard had another steal and was fouled on the breakaway with 1.4 seconds left in the half. She made one foul shot to give the Lady Pirates a 24-23 lead going into the locker room.

Polson went to a man-to-man defense in the third, eventually mounting a 35-26 lead behind another three-pointer from Fouty and some good moves inside by Huyser.

Fouty's three-pointer with 34 seconds left gave the Lady Pirates a 48-46 lead, and then Huyser had a block underneath and followed up with one foul shot at the other end of the court to give Polson a little more breathing room. Bigfork missed a three-pointer to tie with three seconds left to give Polson the win.

On Saturday in Whitefish, the Lady Pirates started off with a 15-9 lead after the first quarter, but couldn't keep up with the Bulldogs after that.

"We were playing good defense, but then we had three people in foul trouble (on the bench). We only scored 13 points the next two quarters," Thomas said. "I had to play girls who weren't used to playing together as much."

Mowbray and Fouty led the team with 12 points, followed by Nesladek with nine, Orchard with five, Huyser with four and Emily Fors with two.

"We need to work on our shooting, but we can compete with Whitefish. I'm looking forward to playing them in Polson," Thomas said.

The Lady Pirates will face Columbia Falls on Thursday (today), and travel to Libby this weekend. Thomas said the Wildkats are shaping up to be one of the toughest teams in the conference, especially on their own turf.

"Columbia Falls is playing the best basketball in the district, with possibly the exception of Ronan. Columbia Falls is really hot right now, and we need to hold them to less than 60 points in order to have a chance to win," he said.

Last week marked the first conference match-ups for most teams, and with the start of the second half of the season next week, almost all of the remaining