Lady Pirates capture first victory of season

The Polson Lady Pirates basketball team got its first victory of the season with a 50-43 win over Stevensville Tuesday night only to have their established momentum slightly dissipate with a 68-19 loss to Columbia Falls Thursday.

The Lady Pirates were capitulated by their point guard Lauren Lefthand. Lefthand had a career-high 21 points.

The Lady Pirates shot 42 percent from 2-point range and were 13-of-20 from the free thrown line. This efficiency is one of the reasons the Lady Pirates won their first game of the season, according to their coach Joe Quinn.

“It was a big psychological boost for the kids and it was good for us to work so hard,” Quinn said. “It was nice to get a victory after putting in all of that work and suffering from a disappointing loss against Columbia Falls. The girls were pretty excited after getting that victory and that was good. Hopefully, it will give them a little bit of a taste of victories down the road and they will be hungry to get some more victories.”

Quinn said Polson was still looking to improve, even with its first victory of the season.

“Against Stevensville, we struggled against the 1-3-1 press, turned the ball over sometimes, and shot the ball too quickly,” Quinn said. “Right now, we are still working on our transition defense and that is what is getting us right now.”

Headed into the game with Stevi, Quinn said he anticipated the match up to be “even,” and he was right.

“They have had three girls that are pretty tough and they can score the ball,” Quinn said. “They are a just a scrappy team and they put a lot of pressure on you. They create a lot of turnovers. All in all, I was pretty pleased with how the game went. Our team had really big third and fourth quarters.”

Quinn said his team really struggled against Columbia Falls, a team that is called a favorite by many publications as one of the perennial Class-A state title contenders.

“They are a very good basketball team and they don’t have any weak positions from their starting five,” Quinn said. “They are very good with their starters. They really don’t show any kind of emotion (when they play). If they make a mistake, they just go right back and play the next play very solid.”

Quinn said his team struggled against the Lady Wildcats’ press.

“They pressed us early and they are just patient on offense,” Quinn said. “They can all shoot the ball very well and they have four girls that can shoot the 3-ball. They have the height inside and even if they miss, they can grab the rebound and get a second-chance opportunity. They are a very good basketball team and they transition very well. Their transition game makes them very tough to handle.”

Quinn said he was “concerned” headed into the game about his team’s struggle with getting back in transition.

“Our transition defense was what I was worried about going into the game,” Quinn said. “We did pretty well on offense. We broke their press and we got some good shots at the basket but the ball just wasn’t going in. C-Falls was able to take advantage of early opportunities. We got down on ourselves and that doesn’t help.”

Quinn said he felt his team executed a good game plan against the WildKats.

“We tried to stretch them out with our wings guarding their shooters,” Quinn said. “We had Mollie Fisher run along the top in our 1-3-1 and that was our game plan but they just moved the ball so quickly. They are used to playing against the 1-3-1 defense and they share the ball and pass it around so the ball gets inside. They are just a tough match up. They can shoot and have tall, big post players. Defending against them is demoralizing too and that doesn’t help when you start to try to press and force the action. You have to be very patient on offense and that was our goal.”

Quinn said he felt C-Falls has one of the best teams in the state.

It won’t get easier for the Lady Pirates who are scheduled to play Frenchtown.

Frenchtown has a new player on its team and Shannan Wooster, a transfer from Missoula Sentinel, was the second leading scorer in Western AA with 378 points last season.

Prior to the addition of Worster, the Lady Broncs had a quintet of returnees who had scored in the 100s. According to Quinn, and several other area coaches, the Lady Broncs were a “solid” team before the transfer of Worster.

“This will be a really tough game for us,” Quinn said. “They lost to C-Falls by nine and they were the closest this season to defeating C-Falls.”

The Lady Pirates will a play at Libby Saturday.

“We played them last year and did pretty well against them,” Quinn said. “They have a couple of really good basketball players and they’ve been doing well. I know they have a good guard and a good post player. They’ll have an inside-out type of game. I haven’t seen them this year but going off last year, both games we played were really tight. Hopefully, we can go to Libby and battle with them, keep it close and win against those guys.”

Columbia Falls 68, Polson 19

C. Falls 27 15 17 9 – 68

Polson 6 3 8 2 – 19

C. FALLS – Peyton Kehr 20, Kiara Burlage 15, Dani Douglas 9, Cydney Finberg 8, Hannah Gedlaman 7, Sydney Hovde 6, Ryley Kehr 3.

POLSON – Mollie Fisher 2 4-4 8, Lauren Lefthand 5, Kaelyn Smith 4, Mikayla Croft 2. (Sa07Jan17)

3FGs – CF7 (P.Kehr 3, Finberg 2, Douglas, R.Kehr), P1 (Lefthand). REBOUNDS – CF26 (Hovde 6), P12* (Smith 3, Lefthand 3, Olivia Perez *3, Fisher 2, Quinn Motichka). ASSISTS – CF18* (P.Kehr *5), P6 (Lefthand 2, Motichka 2, Smith, Fisher). STEALS – CF16* (Douglas 5), P8 (Lefthand 3, Smith, Motichka, *Natasha Gravelle, *Mahala Buffalo, Perez).

Asterisk (*) denotes stat variant(s) derived from unofficial tally by John Heglie that may differ from official summary: P10r (Perez 2r, Fisher 1r), P7s (Smith 2s, Fisher 1s, Buffalo 0s, Gravelle 0s).

Polson 50, Stevensville 43

Polson 8 8 19 15 – 50

Stevi 5 10 15 13 – 43

POLSON – Lauren Lefthand 7 6-7 21, Kaelyn Smith 5 3-4 15, Mollie Fisher 3 3-4 9, Quinn Motichka 1 1-2 3, Olivia Perez 2.

STEVENSVILLE – Maddie Paul 2, Megan Pendergast 17, Evynne Alexander 2, Angel Richards 6, Haley Kampka 7, Kayla Schmiedeke 2, Makayla Davids 7.

3FG P3-12 (Smith 2, Lefthand). 28REB (Fisher 8, Perez 6, Lefthand 4, Mikayla Croft 4, Motichka 3, Smith 2, Alex Pierre). 10ASST (Smith 4, Lefthand 2, Perez 2, Fisher, Motichka). 21STL (Smith 9, Lefthand 5, Perez 3, Fisher 2, Croft, Motichka).