There was nothing pretty about Friday night’s crosstown showdown for the Flathead Braves.
Except for the final score.
Flathead snapped an eight-game losing streak to its Kalispell rivals with a hard-fought 46-39 win at Glacier High School in the final Western AA regular season game of the year for both teams.
A boisterous, orange-clad Braves student section stormed the court after the win, jubilantly releasing three and a half years of the school’s frustration alongside a team full of players who had never experienced victory against the Wolfpack.
“Glacier’s had our number for several years now and to be able to get a win, in their place, this is just really big for Flathead and the Braves basketball program,” Flathead coach Ross Gustafson said.
“(The losing streak) starts to play a little mental game or whatever you want to call it,” he continued.
“We’ve kind of had that mental block against them. Even in the games where I thought we were evenly matched they would take it to us, and our guys said ‘today’s our day’.”
Because of the win, the Braves and Wolfpack will actually get to play one more time this year, and in just three days. The two schools will meet on Tuesday night at Flathead in a state tournament play-in game. Flathead’s last win in the series, before Friday, came in the 2012 state tournament semifinals.
Their most recent win against Glacier hardly came easily.
The game was a slow-paced slog, with plenty of missed baskets on both sides. The Braves came into the game having averaged more than 60 points in their last three outings, but needed late free throws Friday just to break 40.
“That’s how Glacier likes to play, slowing it down, minimizing the possessions each team gets,” Flathead senior Matt Marshall said. “I thought we adjusted pretty well. We played great defense and when we had shots we made them.”
Slowing things down on defense, as it turned out, was by design.
“We thought that if we can keep it a little bit more of a half court game we’ll have a better shot,” Gustafson said. “Our guys really busted it back on defense if we’d miss a shot or even make a shot, and we’d set up in our man or zone, or whatever we were in, and really make Glacier grind out shots.”
The Wolfpack (6-14, 3-9 Western AA) shot just 28.9 percent from the field in the game, and 28.6 percent from 3-point range — including 2 for 13 in the second half.
“Credit to Flathead, they hit shots when they needed to,” Glacier coach Mark Harkins said. “That’s where we struggled … shooting below 30 percent; it’s kind of tough to win a close game like that.”
The game was tied at 21 at halftime, and the Wolfpack led 30-28 after a quick 7-0 spurt late in the third quarter, but Glacier would not made another field goal until the final minute of the contest.
Flathead (7-13, 4-8) took the lead on a Bridger Johnson basket to close out the third quarter and the two teams played mostly to a stalemate in the fourth. The Braves crept ahead on three free throws, but those were the only points in the first six minutes of the period.
With under two minutes to go, Kye AuClaire slithered through the defense and scooped one in to make the score 37-32, and the Braves salted the game away at the free throw line.
AuClaire finished with seven points, five of which came in the final quarter.
“It’s a great feeling,” AuClaire, a senior, said of the win. “To see our whole school there supporting us, and being there for us even when times were bad, was awesome to see.
“Our coach was saying it means way more than to just our team. It means a lot to the whole school, to the whole program.”
Tyler Johnson led Flathead with 13 points, making 3 of 5 from beyond the arc. Bridger Johnson added 12. Sophomore Sam Elliott had eight points and eight rebounds.
Noah Lindsay, Dylan Ruggles, Tadan Gilman and Jake Norberg each had eight points to pace the Wolfpack.
A game time Tuesday night has not been determined. The game will be played at Flathead with the winner moving on to another state tournament play-in game against the third seed in Western AA.
Flathead 9 12 11 14 — 46
Glacier 16 5 9 9 — 39
FLATHEAD — Matt Marshall 1 4-6 6, Kye AuClaire 2 3-4 7, Bridger Johnson 6 0-1 12, Tyler Johnson 3 4-4 13, Sam Elliott 2 4-4 8, Seth Adolph 0 0-0 0, Wyatt Potter 0 0-0 0, Wyatt Smith 0 0-0 0, C.J. Dugan 0 0-0 0. Totals — 14 15-19 46.
GLACIER — Blayne Bailey 1 0-0 2, Noah Lindsay 3 0-2 8, Dylan Ruggles 3 2-2 8, Tadan Gilman 3 0-0 8, Jake Norberg 2 2-2 8, Drake Dulin 0 0-0 0, Jake Willich 0 2-2 2, John Learn 0 1-2 1, Pat O’Connell 1 0-0 2. Totals — 13 7-10 39.
3-point field goals — Flathead 3 (T. Johnson), Glacier 6 (Lindsay 2, Gilman 2, Norberg 2). Rebounds — Flathead 19 (Elliott 5), Glacier 30 (Lindsay 7, Bailey 7, Willich 7). Assists — Flathead (Adolph 3), Glacier (Lindsay 3, Ruggles 3). Turnovers — Flathead 12, Glacier 14. Total fouls — Flathead 10, Glacier 18. Fouled out — None. Technical fouls — None.