Vikes get season's first win against Class AA Flathead

The Bigfork High School varsity boys basketball team got their first win of the season last Thursday night as they cruised past Class AA Flathead High School (2-8), 60-55, but lost on the road to Libby High School 49-40.

“It felt amazing,” said senior guard Garrett Pewe. “Not as much as I thought it would because I’ve been expecting us to win for awhile. It makes it even better that it was Flathead and a AA school. It shows that we’re here to play. It feels better to beat a bigger school because of how everyone else looks at it.”

The Vikings (1-8, 0-3) took the lead from the very beginning and never allowed Flathead to catch up.

“They were ecstatic,” said Bigfork varsity boys basketball coach Lyle Whiteman. “It was great to get the monkey off their back. I think they’ve felt that they have been playing better each game. We lost to Ronan and we shouldn’t have and that really hurt us, but we learned a lot from that.”

Scott Taylor scored eight points in the first quarter to help Bigfork to a 12-7 lead. In the second quarter it was Garrett Pewe who led the team in scoring with two 3-pointers and a field goal to help push Bigfork’s lead to 34-18 by the end of the first half.

“I feel like we’re all playing better as a team,” Pewe said. “Everything is starting to click and we are learning our roles and where everyone fits in. We are all really improving.”

 The second quarter was a true team effort as six Vikings scored during the period; Keenan Evans and Jake Milner each contributing four points and Taylor and Donny Tudahl each adding two.

“The team did a good job of holding the ball and being patient,” Whiteman said. “They passed the ball well and stayed out of traps.”

In the third quarter Flathead came out hoping for a comeback, playing with high intensity as they outscored Bigfork 22-11. Both teams put up 15 in the fourth quarter, 13 of which Bigfork picked up on the free throw line in 18 attempts.

“I was real pleased with the way they played,” Whiteman said. “They just keep improving. We are still working on our defense, but they did some things really well there, and offensively they played more confidently. They made a few mistakes and  had a few too many turnovers. I talked to them at half time about that. It is still something that we need to work on. We are taking care of the ball better and better. We are still learning how to play against a team when they come out hard trying to come back from behind. We’re learning to deal with that kind of intensity, but it is just part of the learning process.”

Despite dealing with knee problems last week, Pewe led all scorers with 24 points and had five rebounds, five assists and three steals. He was six-of-eight from the free-throw line as well.

“I was just feeling the shot,” Pewe said. “They were giving me a little bit more of an opening and I was able to get a few more shots off. I was feeling more confident on the floor. I felt like I had to shoot better too because Brock was sitting out with foul trouble.”

Taylor was the Vikings’ leading rebounder with 20 boards, and he also had 12 points, three assists and three blocks. Evans contributed nine points, which included a 3-pointer and a perfect four-for-four from the foul line. Milner had six points, four assists and four steals. Tudahl had four rebounds and two points.

“The bench played a great game,” Whiteman said. “I thought they did an excellent job of stepping up while Brock was out. Keenan played a great game. He played for a lot of minutes and contributed really well defensively and offensively. Donny played really well too. He didn’t put up a lot of statistics, but he put up a key shot right before the buzzer at the end of the first half. It gave us a big boost and he did well defensively too. Zac played his best game of the season. He helped us out a lot on defense, and he put up a few points for us too.”

Boll, who has been averaging 16 points a game and leading Bigfork in scoring all season, had a rough night, putting up just two points and three rebounds. Whiteman benched Boll in the first quarter after he accumulated two fouls. He put the senior forward back in during the third quarter, but continual double-teaming by the Braves kept him from scoring and led to Boll sitting out for more of the game. Whiteman put him back in during the final two minutes of the fourth quarter when the Braves had closed the gap to three points. Boll quickly made a rebound and was fouled while trying to shoot. He made both free-throws, his first points of the game, and then headed to the other end of the court to block a Flathead shot and keep Bigfork’s lead.

“The defense was really keyed in on him,” Whiteman said. “He had a difficult game. He’s been carrying us all year with his scoring. I think it was really frustrating for him. But he came though at crucial times and I’m not sure anyone else would’ve given us that.”

Boll turned things around for Saturday’s game against Libby (8-3, 4-1), though the team was unable to come away with the win.

Things looked good for Bigfork in the first quarter as they took a 13-9 lead, but Libby outscored the Vikings in every other quarter; 16 to eight in the second, 13 to 11 in the third and 11 to nine in the fourth.

“We got off to a good start offensively, but they picked up their defense in the second half,” Whiteman said. “Libby played very patient and disciplined in their offense and forced us to spend a lot of time on defense.”

Boll led the team with 10 points, nine rebounds, one assist, one steal and one block. Lael Richmond contributed eight points, six of which he made in the fourth quarter, and four rebounds. Taylor scored seven points, grabbed six rebounds and had two steals and one assist. Milner added six points, including four free-throws in the first half in his only two trips to the line. He also grabbed three rebounds and made one assist. Pewe put up five points, two field goals and a 3-pointer, all in the first quarter, and had three rebounds, three assists and one steal. Evans had five rebounds and was the only Bigfork player to score in the fourth quarter besides Richmond, as he went two-for-two from the foul line.

“Turnovers and the fact that they were able to hold on to the ball for a lot of the game made it so we weren’t able to get as many shots off as we would’ve liked,” Whiteman said. “We only had 31 shot attempts. Our shooting percentage wasn’t bad, we just didn’t get a lot of shots off.”

The Vikings travel to Columbia Falls tomorrow night, Jan. 30 and Polson on Saturday, Jan. 31.