Boys basketball: Trojan boys rally late to stun Thompson Falls

Trailing by seven points as the game clock dipped below 1 minute, the odds were definitely against Troy to pull out its opening game in the District 7-B boys basketball tournament.

The Trojans beat the odds.

Trent Cratty scored eight points over a span of 35 seconds and Troy stunned Thompson Falls with a 42-40 victory Thursday at Ralph Tate Gymnasium in Libby.

“Trent gets a steal and scores and then scores a 3-pointer – those are big shots,” Trojan coach Cory Andersen said. “He really stepped it up.”

Cratty finished the game with 24 points with a sweet shot that rarely missed all night. But he also came up big on defense when he stole Thompson Falls’ in-bounds pass and then quickly scored. Only a few seconds earlier, Brian Hammrich had scored and the back-to-back hoops cut the Bluehawk lead down to just one.

After Thompson Falls called timeout, Troy came up with another big defensive play. With Troy in their face, the Bluehawks couldn’t get the ball down the floor and turned it over when Ryan Rayson got in the way of 6-foot-6 Challis Wilson. The ball bounced free and Jake Alexander picked it up to give the Trojans possession.

On the ensuing offensive play, Alexander threw the ball in to Cratty, who buried a 3-pointer with 18 seconds left for a 42-40 lead.

Thompson Falls had one final possession to try to win or send the game into overtime. Josh Hojem attempted an off-balanced shot in the lane and it bounced off the glass and into the hands of Rayson at the buzzer.

Troy (10-9) advances into the tournament semifinals with a Friday night game against Plains. That contest is scheduled for an 8 p.m. tipoff in Libby.

Thompson Falls opened the door for the Trojans late in the fourth with an inability to convert free throws. The Bluehawks missed on the front end of three 1-and-1 opportunities and didn’t score from the field over the final 4:40 of the game.

“If they hit those three throws, it’s going to be tough,” Andersen said. “Both teams played hard … they played a great game.”

The Bluehawks came at Troy with a triangle-and-2 defense that basically kept Alexander and Rayson out of the game. But Cratty was on a roll and had scored 13 points by halftime. Hammrich got his points as well and the Trojan defensive pressure paid off.

Troy 42, Thompson Falls 40

Scoring by Quarters:

Troy          9    12    5    16—42

T. Falls    17     8     6     9—40

TROY (42)

Cratty 10 1-2 24, Hammrich 4 1-4 9, Higgins 1 0-0 2, Ormiston 2 0-0 5, Roeder 0 0-2 0, Rayson 1 0-0 2. Totals 18 2-8 42.

THOMPSON FALLS

Wilson 5 2-2 12, Wood 6 0-1 12, Dalby 3 0-2 6, Reinschmidt 0 1-2 1, Hojem 2 0-0 6, Pavlik 0 0-2 0, Wakefield 1 1-4 3. Totals 17 4-13 40.