Lady Vikings magical run ends at Western C Divisonals

HAMILTON — Prior to when the District postseason began, Charlo High School girl’s basketball coach Bret Thompson and his team did remodeling to their offensive and defensive schemes.

The tactic worked and resulted in the Lady Vikings not only capturing the Western Class 14-C District title, but also put them in the conversation for a Divisional crown and a possibility at earning a State bid.

The modifications coach Thompson made prior to the postseason worked and allowed the Lady Vikings to qualify for the Divisionals before they fell short losing to Ennis in the semifinals 31-15 and to Alberton-Superior Co-op 50-48.

“I was happy as far as our effort from the girls,” Thompson said. “If I told someone a month that a group of girls from Charlo would qualify for the Divisional semifinals, I think every coach but the Charlo coach would have laughed. I think the girls did well and responded to the changes that we made late. I was pretty happy with how they played.”

The changes the Lady Vikings made resulted in a 55-23 victory over Hot Springs, a 46-24 victory over Arlee, a 49-41 win over Noxon, a 37-17 victory over St. Regis and a 40-26 victory over Seeley Swan in the first round of Divisionals before being eliminated with losses to Ennis and Alberton-Superior.

Thompson attributed his team’s late-season surge to just evaluating several things his team did to cater to the Lady Vikings’ strengths.

“It all of the sudden clicked,” Thompson said. “It would have been fun to get another week with this group. I know they were disappointed after losing two close games. Down the road, they’ll remember this experience at Divisionals and use it as motivation to get ready for next year and look at what they should have done. That will give them some urgency on what they need to do in the off season. Everyone wants to win and someone is most deserving.”

Prior to the postseason, Thompson and his team made some changes after they had a group discussion.

“Before we got to play some zone and we were beat up a couple of times in our District, the girls looked at each other, didn’t like what was happening and they were willing to make some changes,” Thompson said. “So we quit doing what we were doing, started playing man to man defense and caught a couple of our teams in our District.”

Thompson said he felt the success was the result of a collaborative effort between his coaching staff and the Lady Vikings.

“I just thought we put a good game plan together and our team really did pick it up,” Thompson said. “We made a lot of changes at the end and the postseason was almost like the beginning of the year in some ways. We started all over two or three weeks ago and the girls responded well to it.”

In the final two games of Divisionals, the Lady Vikings ran into two of the top-tier teams in Districts and though they competed well, fell just short in their efforts to qualify for the state tournament.

Against Ennis, the Lady Vikes’ potent offense was reduced when they took one of their star players Kaitlin Cox out of the game.

“When you shoot 10 percent from the field, you aren’t going to win very many games. That was one of those situations where size changed everything. Ennis was loaded. It definitely showed and we played more like the younger team.”

Despite the loss, Thompson and his Lady Vikings received validation in playing Ennis, as they gave the Lady Mustangs fits throughout the entire game.

“It had to be one of the toughest games we played against the Ennis girls,” Thompson said. “They complained a lot during the game.”

Against the Superior-Alberton Lady Mountain Cats, the Lady Vikings initially struggled with one of the teams that entered the Divisional Tournament with an unbeaten record.

Undaunted, Charlo bounced back and made it a game. The possibility of a Charlo-Arlee consolation final eventually ended up falling four points short as both teams fell by two points. The Lady Vikings fell 50-48 and the Scarlet lost to Manhattan Christian 44-42.

Thompson said he felt playing from behind and trying to recover from the early start was difficult for the Lady Vikings to overcome.

“When you are looking at scores by quarters, it really adds up in a hurry,” Thompson said. “We were playing down and literally changed but Superior spread us out and forced us to chase them around for a while. We missed a couple of shots that we were making earlier in the game. I think it a had lot to do with how much effort the kids were expending and it really caught up to us.”

Cox scored a career-high 31 points as the Lady Mountain Cats seem to have very few answers for one of the Lady Vikings’ top-tier scorers.

“I don’t know if I have coached a girl that has scored over 30,” Thompson recalled. “She did a really nice job for us and her performance is something for us to look at when we are coming back next year.”

One statistic the Lady Vikings would have liked to change was the 30 turnovers they committed at Divisionals, but another area in which they outdid virtually every participant was their 52 rebounds.

“I would have loved to sneak out there where we ended up at State,” Thompson said.

Clark Fork 50, Charlo 48

Charlo (17-7), 13C Clark Fork (22-1)

Charlo 8 16 5 19 – 48

Clark Fork 16 10 9 15 – 50

CHARLO – Kaitlin Cox 10 5-8 31, Tyrah Hammond 3 1-2 7, *Allie Delaney 1 3-4 5, Destiny Manuel 1 1-2 3, *Liev Smith 2.

CLARK FORK – Kenzie Mueller 26, Madison Mask 10, Madison Lommen 7, Hailey Kelly 4,

Montanna Baughman 2, Margaret Parkin 1.

3FGs: C6-12 (Cox 6-9). C52reb (Hammond 11, Delaney 9, Smith 9, Cox 8, Carlee Fryberger 8, Sakoya Gaustad 3, Manuel 2, Teaira Truman 2). C8ast (Smith 3, Truman, Cox, Manuel, Gaustad, Delaney). C5stl (Cox 3, Hammond, Delaney). C1blk (Smith). (Sa24Feb18gm9div)

Asterisk (*) denotes stat variant(s) where sideline specs differ from venue/media coverage: Delaney 4p, Smith 3p.

Ennis 31, Charlo 15

Charlo (17-6), 12C Ennis (18-3)

Charlo 3 4 4 4 – 15

Ennis 7 11 5 8 – 31

CHARLO – *Allie Delaney 2 0-5 4, Kaitlin Cox 1 2-2 4, Tyrah Hammond 1 1-2 3, *Liev Smith 0 2-4 2, Adriana Johnson 1, Carlee Fryberger 1.

ENNIS – Josie Hokanson 9, Whitney McKitrick 9, Jourdain Klein 6, Paige Anderson 4, Danyel Martin 2, Josie Jenkins 1.

3FGs: C0-4 ( ), E3 (Hokanson 2, McKitrick). C26reb (Cox 5, Hammond 5, Sakoya Gaustad 4, Smith 3, Johnson 3, Delaney 2, Teaira Truman 2, Destiny Manuel, Carlee Fryberger). C1ast (Gaustad). C12stl (Delaney 3, Manuel 3, Cox 2, Fryberger 2, Hammond, Smith). C3defl (Delaney 2, Fryberger). (Fr23Feb18gm7div)

Asterisk (*) denotes stat variant(s) where sideline specs differ from venue/media coverage: Delaney (2FG 2-9, FT 1-5)5p, Smith (FT1-4)1p. Incorrectly featured online posting (Charlo: 1q12, 2q10, 3q9, 4q7 – 38; Ennis: 1q14, 2q16, 3q16, 4q5 – 50) does not coincide with any tournament contest scoring.

Charlo 40, Seeley-Swan 26

At Hamilton, a Lady Vikings duet dabbled among double digits, while Allie Delaney led a rebounding entourage with 11 boards. Charlo (17-5), 13C Seeley-Swan (13-9)

Charlo 6 11 6 17 – 40

Seeley-Swan 2 4 14 6 – 26

CHARLO – Tyrah Hammond 3 5-6 11, Sakoya Gaustad 2 6-6 10, Allie Delaney 3 0-0 6, Adriana Johnson 1 3-4 5, *Kaitlin Cox 2 0-3 4, Liev Smith 1 0-4 2, *Teaira Truman 0 2-4 2.

SEELEY-SWAN – Chloe Robbins 8, Klaire Kovatch 6, Autumn Morse 4, Ashley Miller 4, Terra Bertsch 2,

Jory Towe 2.

3FGs: C0-10, SS0. C46reb (Delaney 11, Smith 9, Hammond 9, Gaustad 5, Destiny Manuel 5, Cox 3, Johnson 2, Carlee Fryberger 2). C4ast (Truman, Hammond, Gaustad, Delaney). C9stl (Manuel 3, Smith 2, Truman, Gaustad, Fryberger, Delaney). C2blk (Smith 2). C5defl (Hammond 2, Delaney 2, Fryberger). (Th22Feb18gm2div)

Asterisk (*) denotes stat variant(s) where sideline specs differ from venue/media coverage: Cox (2FG 2-14, FT 1-5)5p, Truman (FT1-2)1p.