Lady Dogs drop Polson for big home win
Kaiah Moore rises for the layup during the Lady Dogs' big win over Polson on Friday. (Daniel McKay/Whitefish Pilot)
Claire Carloss fights off the contact for the layup against Polson on Friday. (Daniel McKay/Whitefish Pilot)
Jasmine Matern shoots from the post during Friday's win over Polson. (Daniel McKay/Whitefish Pilot)
Kaiah Moore launches the jumpshot during Friday's win over Polson. (Daniel McKay/Whitefish Pilot)
As Lady Dogs head coach Bob Bolam put it, last weekend was a “tale of two nights” for his team.
On Friday Whitefish (3-9, 2-5) hosted the Lady Pirates from Polson and came away with a dominating 56-24 win.
After running out to a modest three-point lead after one quarter, the team opened the gap up to a 29-14 deficit by half and extended the lead to 30 in the fourth quarter.
Gracie Smyley and Kaiah Moore led in scoring for the Lady Dogs with 13 and 10 respectively.
Then Whitefish traveled to Libby the following night, where things went differently.
The Lady Loggers jumped out to a 20-8 halftime lead and held on through the second half for the 36-24 win.
Whitefish’s scoring took a hit, as they managed quarters of 4, 4, 6 and 10 points throughout the game.
Claire Carloss led the offensive attack with six points.
Bolam said it was frustrating to see the stark contrast between the Polson and Libby games.
“The difference a day makes. Against Polson we put the ball in the basket, we ran good offense and played good defense. We just did a lot of great things and things looked really promising that night,” he said. “Libby was not a good experience for us. We just struggled. Too many fouls, we didn’t come out focused, we didn’t really play aggressive. We shot four free throws and they shot 28. We were not playing good defense.”
Bolam added he felt his team came out mentally and physically ready to go against the Pirates. Against the Loggers, however, one of the two seemed to be lacking.
Against better teams like Libby, his girls are going to need to be more prepared mentally, he said.
“Every game for us is going to be like that. We need to be ready for every opponent,” Bolam said.
This week Whitefish travels to Eureka on Friday before hosting Stevensville the following day at 4 p.m.
Bolam said he’s hoping for some consistency this week.
“It’s just consistency. We have the ability to do good things, we just need to do it night after night,” he said. “[They’re] going to be tough games for us. We’ve got to come to play both Friday and Saturday if we expect to get some wins.”
Polson 10 5 4 5 — 24
Whitefish 13 16 15 12 — 56
WHITEFISH – Kaiah Moore 10, Claire Carloss 7, Jasmine Matern 4, Gracie Smyley 13, Payton Kastella 6, Mikenna Ellis 9, Marlee Bender 7.
Whitefish 4 4 6 10 — 24
Libby 7 13 8 7 — 35
WHITEFISH – Kaiah Moore 2, Hope Brown 2, Claire Carloss 6, Jasmine Matern 4, Peyton Kastella 2, Jodi Walburn 2, Mikenna Ells 2, Marlee Bender 4.