Lady Loggers fall short of state

The Lady Loggers went to Kalispell hoping to secure a spot in the state basketball tournament, but fell short. The girls lost consecutive games to Ronan and Bigfork to be eliminated from the competition after knocking off the Lady Wardens of Deer Lodge in the tournament opener.

The girls started out roughly against the Deer Lodge girls, at one point falling behind by nine points, but fought back to secure the win, 45-32.

“After some opening jitters, the girls relaxed and clamped down the defense to draw even and then pull away in the fourth,” head coach Jim May said. “We were very excited with the win. We had talked a lot about winning that first game at divisionals to play in the semifinals and have a chance to qualify for the state tournament.”

The second game pitted the girls against the Maidens of Ronan, a team with whom the Lady Loggers split their two regular season games. May said the girls fought a hard game, but a few costly mistakes in the end left them on the shallow end of the scoreboard, 66-41, and carried over into the third game against Bigfork.

“We really felt like we could beat Ronan as we split with them during the regular season,” he said. “We knew we could give them some problems if we executed our plans. The game was close throughout the first three quarters, but Ronan got a lead in the fourth and we had to take some chances on defense to catch up that didn’t work out. It was amazing how a few costly mistakes were so punishing not only for this game, but also in the loser-out game the next day against Bigfork as well.”

The loss put the girls into a third battle of the season agains the Valkyries, a team the Lady Loggers came up short against twice during the regular season. The Lady Loggers fell to the Vals, 56-39, ending their season.

Coach May said that while he’d hoped to advance farther, the season was a resounding success.

“There were so many positives from this season,” he said. “We started with five brand new starters and played with a totally new supporting cast.  In practice every night, half of our team were freshmen. What a great group of kids to do this with. We had a very tough schedule with several very tough, close losses.  about 10 of our 13 losses included a time during the game where our opponent went on a run that we couldn’t overcome. I have never had a team where absolutely every one of its players were on the honor roll, but this year’s group was. 

“The Lady Loggers were a class act wherever they went. They play a huge role in the new Logger Nation.”