Valkyries take district 7B's no. 1 spot for third year in a row

The Valkyries basketball team fought hard last Friday in Florence only to come up two points short of a tie, 60-58, and pulled it back from Thomspon Falls with a 54-18 win at home on Saturday.

With seven seconds left in the game, Florence sunk the last two points of the game from the free throw line to pull off a win. Bigfork led 20-12 in the first quarter and 31-25 at the half.

Florence came out strong out of the locker room and put 18 points in the bucket to the Vals seven.

The fourth quarter saw a lot of fouls, and Bigfork managed to tied it up when the game-deciding foul was called.

The Vals put up 20 points in that last quarter to Florence’s 17.

“I was proud of them for how hard they played,” Valkyries Head Coach Mark Hansen said.

Melissa VanDerveer took her career high of 23 points in that game and pulled down 12 rebounds.

Tessa Robertson yanked 20 rebounds away from Florence and put 18 in the hole.

The tight loss fired up the Vals for Saturday’s revenge game against Thompson Falls, who gave them their only district 7B loss in the first half of the season.

The girls came out shooting and put 25 points away in the first quarter alone and held the Bluehawks to six points.

“It was nice to see the girls fired up and ready to go,” Hansen said. “I thought we had as good a weekend as we’ve had all year, even with the loss.”

The Vals calmed down a bit in the remaining quarters, but held Thompson Falls to just five points in the second and third quarters.

Bigfork took the second quarter 8-3 and the third 12-2.

Taylor Peck came up big for the Vals and put 17 points away. VanDerveer had 12 and Robertson had 10.

Defensively Hansen tried something new. He widened their zone defense so they got up on the shooters better than the last time.

“I thought McKinze Shults had an outstanding game for us defensively,” Hansen said. “Making sure they didn’t have any wide open looks.”

Shults pulled down seven rebounds and had six steals. VanDerVeer grabbed 11 rebounds.

The win over Thompson Falls put them in the district champion spot for the third year in a row.

“I think that’s huge for our girls,” Hansen said.

Bigfork plays the winner of Tuesdays Troy vs. Plains game at home on Thursday at 5 p.m. The 7B tournament plays out Saturday in Columbia Falls.