Lady Trojans' season ends at tourney
The Lady Trojans traveled to Kalispell over the weekend for the divisional basketball tournament. Despite going two-and-out against Bigfork and Florence, head coach Justin Young labeled the season a success for his team.
“I couldn’t be prouder of these girls,” he said. “We had our first winning season in over a decade, finishing at 12-11, and made it back to divisionals. We had one of our better conference records in a while, and had some memorable games, such as the Plains contest, the Libby game at home and beating Eureka in the consolation game in Polson. All 15 girls in the program made huge contributions to our success, which makes it all the more special. Most importantly, though, we all got better at the game of basketball and had fun doing it. I can’t thank the girls enough for their hard work at making this amazing season.”
In their first game of the tournament on Thursday, the girls fell to the Lady Falcons of Florence, 44-33.
The Lady Trojans held tight with the Florence girls for most of the game, trailing by just one at the end of the first quarter and four at the end of the half. The teams battled to a draw in the third quarter, before the Lady Falcons ran away in the final period, outscoring the Lady Trojans 14-7 to secure the victory.
Allie Coldwell led the Lady Trojans in scoring with nine points, also adding five rebounds and five assists for Troy. Kaitlyn Downey kicked in eight points, Aurora Becquart seven.
Florence’s Chloe Arthur led all scorers with 10.
The loss to Florence put the Lady Trojans into a loser-out contest with the district champion Valkyries of Bigfork. The Lady Trojans were just outgunned by the Vals, falling 55-35 to be eliminated from the tournament.
Allie Brown was the Lady Trojans’ leading scorer, racking up 12 points for the ladies. Coldwell added 11 for Troy, along with five rebounds. Alyssa Lewis added seven rebounds and four points in the effort.
Bigfork’s Lana Berg led all scorers with 19 points, also snatching five boards.
Bigfork and Florence faced each other in the consolation game, with Bigfork coming out on top 52-41 to take third place and qualify for the state tournament.
Young said his girls, at times, played their best ball of the season, but they were just unable to put it all together for the entire game.
“There were times in both games at the tourney that we played some of our best basketball of the season,” he said. “Unfortunately, in both games were were unable to put together complete games. Alyssa Lewis had a great couple of games for us, and Allie Brown played one of her best games of the season against Bigfork. Overall, we are happy with our effort, but I think we all have that feeling of wanting more. It may hurt now, but being hungry for more will be the ideal way of starting next season.”