Dogs' fast pace wears down Libby

AJ Wetsch dropped 24 points as Whitefish fended off the hot-shooting Libby Loggers on Friday night to score its first conference win of the season.

The Loggers’ Jonny Cielak caught fire as Libby posted 23 points in the third quarter to take a brief lead. But Whitefish locked down on defense and outscored Libby 15-7 in the final frame for the 63-54 Northwest a victory.

“We didn’t point fingers and battled back,” Wetsch said. “We just came at them.”

Wetsch poured in 16 points in the second half, including a pair of big three-pointers to swing the momentum.

“You never know when you’ll have the hot hand, but when you have it you just have to keep going,” he said.

Whitefish used a platoon game plan, subbing five players at a time on 2-minute rotations. All 10 players on the varsity roster played substantial minutes with the tactic.

“We’re really trying to play an uptempo game,” Whitefish coach Curtis Green said. “We’re not in good enough conditioning to do it for four quarters. so we’re trying to find a way to play the way we want to the entire game.”

The line changes seemed to work as Libby went cold in the final frame.

“They got hot in the third, but in the fourth they got the same shots and couldn’t knock them down for whatever reason,” Green said.

“It’s just something we wanted to try out and I thought we ran it pretty well,” he added.

Cody Olson and Derek Kastella had eight points each, and Jack Streibich put in seven in the team effort.

Saturday the Dogs lost 65-51 at Class AA Glacier High School.

The Bulldogs are 3-2 overall and 1-0 in the Northwest A heading into Christmas break.

Wetsch says he likes the improvement his team has shown in the first month of the season.

“I feel like we’re going in the right direction,” he said. “We just have to keep rolling.”

He said the team needs to work on bringing more consistent defensive intensity.

“We still have a lot to work on,” Wetsch said.

Whitefish next plays at Bigfork on Jan. 2.

Whitefish 17 13 15 18 — 63

Libby 14 10 23 7 — 54

Whitefish, Cody Olson 8, Luke Cardon 2, Brian FauntLeRoy 4, Logan Freeman 2, Luke May 4, Chaffin Ross 4, Jack Streibich 7, AJ Wetsch 24, Derek Kastella 8.

Libby, Adamson 3, Cielak 18, Johnson 12, Petersen 2, Lauer 2, Curtis 17.