Lady Dogs split games with Libby, CFalls

A scoring surge in the third quarter gave the Whitefish girls basketball team a substantial lead over Libby on Friday and the Bulldogs came away with the victory, 41-19.

But on Saturday in Columbia Falls, the girls faced an experienced Wildkat team and couldn’t overcome a large halftime deficit as CFalls took a big 62-28 win.

The Bulldogs move to a 3-5 overall record.

Against Libby, Whitefish playing on the road came out sluggish. Both teams struggled to knock shots down early.

“We haven’t played a lot of games lately, and it was a team we thought we could beat,” Whitefish head coach Bob Bolam said of playing Libby. “We didn’t play that well in the first half, played alright defensively but offensively we couldn’t seem to get going…

“The second half we came out and played a lot better,” he added.

After halftime the Lady Bulldogs came out on fire. Whitefish outscored the Loggers 18-6 in the third quarter which gave the girls a substantial lead heading into the final 8 minutes.

“It was good to see that we came out with a little more fight to us and played a little more in sync,” Bolam said.

Whitefish was led by Bailey Smith with 11 points while Erin Wilde scored 7 and Jude Perry had 6 points. Eight Whitefish players got on the scoreboard in the game.

Whitefish felt like going into Libby it was a winnable game for their young team and Bolam was happy to see his team grab the win.

The next day in Columbia Falls, the Bulldogs again lacked zeal to begin the game, and this time their opponent took advantage. The Wildkats jumped out to a quick lead and capitalized on turnovers early in the game, outscoring Whitefish 18-1 in the first quarter.

“You go from playing a team that’s been struggling to one that’s really good,” Bolam expressed. “They kind of took it to us early, we didn’t handle the pressure well in the first half.”

The Lady Dogs had no answer for the hot-shooting Columbia Falls team that was led by Maddie Robison with 15 points.

Wilde led the scoring for Whitefish with 9 points, while Ashley Gunset had 6 points off a couple of 3-pointers.

Whitefish is now preparing to face the Ronan Maidens Friday on the road. Bolam hopes his team can come out with a little more energy right at the opening whistle and minimize turnovers to get a result against the Maidens.

“We don’t have it any easier coming up this Friday playing Ronan, that’s going to be a tough one too,” he said. “Hopefully we’ve learned a little bit from the weekend, and the last time we played them.”

Whitefish plays in Ronan on Friday beginning at 7 p.m.

Whitefish 8 6 18 9 - 41

Libby 9 2 6 3 - 19

WHITEFISH — Erin Wilde 7, Jude Perry 6, Taylor Means 3, Rya Hirsch 2, Bailey Smith 11, Hailey Ells 5, Alivia Ingold 2, Ainsley Scott 5

LIBBY — Ellie Andreessen 2, Rylee Boltz 7, Kinzee Boehmier 6, Taylor Munro 4

Whitefish 1 6 11 10 - 28

CFalls 18 17 20 7 - 62 WHITEFISH — Erin Wilde 9, Taylor Means 5, Ashley Gunset 6, Bailey Ells 2, Skye Horowitz 4, Ainslee Scott 2.

COLUMBIA FALLS — Maddie Robison 15, Grace Gedlaman 12, Hope McAtee 11, Lexi Oberholtzer 7, Maddie Stutsman 4, Abbie Dorsow 3, Kierra Kemppainen 3, Demye Rensel 3, Scout Medhus 2, Emalee Alton 2.