Girls get past Ronan, but have tough go against Bigfork

The Columbia Falls girls basketball team split last week.

The Wildkats squeaked by Ronan 44-42 last Tuesday and then lost to Bigfork 55-27 Saturday on the road.

In the Ronan game the Kats were up 27-14 in the third quarter, only to see the lead slip away to the Maidens, who would go up  by as many as five points in the contest.

The Kats were able to battle back, however.

A steal by Demye Rensel with under a minute to play turned the tide. At the other end of the floor, Hope McAtee got a shot to fall to take the lead. Ronan had the ball with 8 seconds left, but their last attempt didn’t drop.

Taryn Borgen led the Kats with 17, while McAtee had 10.

Against Bigfork, the Kats were down 10-2 in the first, but cut it to 10-7. After that, they just struggled. Borgen had 9 to lead the team, Emalee Alton had 6 and led the team with 5 rebounds.  Bigfork out rebounded the Kats by 10 

The girls are playing well for 2-3 minutes, coach Cary Finberg said, but then they’ll have 7-8 minutes where they just fall apart. It’s a bit of a mystery, since the team lost just a couple of players to graduation and was playing pretty well toward the end of the season last year. They’ve had five games where they led in the last minute, only to lose the game, he noted.

The girls have one more road game — Thursday against Libby. They finally get a home game Saturday against Whitefish. Game time is 4 p.m.

The girls are 2-6 on the season.