Cats have tough time at Tip-Off tourney
The Columbia Falls boys basketball team had a rough go of it at the Northwest-Southwest A Tip-Off tournament in Missoula last week.
On Friday, the Wildcats lost to Butte Central 46-37 and on Saturday they were dropped by Hamilton 52-41.
Butte jumped out to an 18-8 lead in the first quarter and never looked back. The Cats mustered just three points in the second quarter, but did outscore Butte in the second half.
Against Hamilton, the boys fared better, cutting the deficit to single digits in the fourth, but just couldn’t bridge the gap.
Logan Stephens led the team with 22 points.
“We dug ourselves a hole in both games,” coach Chris Finberg said.
He said the team missed a lot of high percentage shots against Hamilton and even had the chance to take the lead in the third.
“We had our chances,” he said.
In both games, the boys kept playing hard, he noted. Sometimes the shots just don’t fall.
The boys will look to the right the ship this week as they face Frenchtown away Thursday and Flathead Saturday in Kalispell. The Flathead game has an 8 p.m. start.
Both games should be two more good tests for the Cats. The Frenchtown game is their first conference game of the season.
Hamilton 52,
Columbia Falls 41
Hamilton 16 10 10 16 — 52
C. Falls 10 6 13 12 — 41
HAMILTON — Cam Rothie 5, Ky Burch 3, Ty Chouinard 2, Hunter Omlid 17, Jay Taggart 4, Tanner Goligoski 11, Carter Kearns 10.
COLUMBIA FALLS — Austin Green 2, Logan Stephens 22, Steven DeCamp 4, Dakota Bridwell 2, Matthew Morrison 6, DJ Schrade 5
Columbia Falls 8 3 11 15 — 37
Butte Central 18 9 8 11 — 46
COLUMBIA FALLS (1-1) — Austin Green 2 0-0 7, Logan Stephens 2 0-0 6, Stephen DeCamp 3 3-4 9, Dakota Birdwell 4 0-0 9, D.J. Schrade 1 0-0 3, Quintin Schriver 0 0-0 0, B. Fagerland 1 0-0 3, Matthew Morrison 1 0-0 2, Mason Tucker 0 0-2 0. Totals 14 3-6 37.
BUTTE CENTRAL (1-0) — Sam Johnston 2 0-0 4, Tanner Kump 4 0-3 11, Nate McGree 1 5-6 7, Dan McCloskey 2 0-0 10, Cade Holter 1 0-0 2. Tyge Yelenich 0 0-0 0, Matt Simkins 0 0-0 0, Zach Carlson 0 0-0 0, Luke Heaphy 2 2-2 8, Archie Petritz q 0-0 2, Aaron Richards 0 2-4 2. Totals 15 9-15 46.
3-point goals — CF 6 (Stephan 2, Green 1, Fagerland 1, Birdwell 1, Schrade 1), BC 7 (Kump 3, McCloskey 2, Heaphy 2). Fouls — CF 16, BC 11. Fouled out — Green. Technicals — none.