Lady Pirates ready for showdown with Frenchtown

The Polson Lady Pirates now have an opportunity to position themselves to get involved with the conference race with their 34-32 victory over Whitefish Saturday at Whitefish High School.

The Lady Pirates (2-9, 1-2), who were missing key contributor Lauren Lefthand, managed to outscore the Lady Bulldogs 14-10 in the fourth quarter.

“It was a nice victory for the girls mentally, and we were able to run our defense well against Whitefish,” Lady Pirates’ Coach Joe Quinn said.. “We had pretty good success. We turned the ball over a little more than I would have liked but with not having Lauren in the lineup, some of those things were going to happen.”

Quinn said sophomore guard Natasha Gravelle has added to the team’s depth as the Lady Pirates approach the last portion of the season.

“She really stepped up her game and ran point for us,” Quinn said. “I thought she did a really good job and played really hard. We need to get some more of our sophomores involved. We need to get them some more experience and confidence, and have some of our varsity players gain confidence in them.”

In the victory against Whitefish, Mollie Fisher had 10, Kealyn Smith had eight, and Quinn Motichka had four.

The Lady Pirates will be gunning for the third spot and could possibly get in the mix for the second spot in the hypothetical scenario they were able to defeat Frenchtown Friday at Frenchtown High School.

In the last meeting with the Broncs, the Lady Pirates fell 59-32.

“If we were able to knock off Frenchtown (on Friday), we would be there in the mix for second place in the conference,” Quinn said. “Then it would come down to points.”

Quinn said he felt another critical conference game in the future coming up will be the season finale against Whitefish. The Lady Pirates’ final conference game after Frenchtown will be in Feb. against Columbia Falls and Whitefish.

“We will be gunning for Whitefish, and if we beat them we can wrap up the third position,” Quinn said. “We would have to beat Frenchtown by however many points. French town is very, very good and if we are going to enter the game with a chance to win, we are going to have to play our tails off.”

In the first meeting against Frenchtown, Quinn said the Lady Pirates struggled with their transition defense.

“If the girls played other than the third quarter and we played them pretty good quarter wise, hopefully they will have some confidence headed into the game against Frenchtown,” Quinn said. “If we can give Frenchtown a couple of different looks, that will help get a huge win for us.”