Wolfpack goes inside to topple Butte

By FRITZ NEIGHBOR
Daily Inter Lake | January 14, 2021 11:01 PM

The Glacier Wolfpack left a big part of its arsenal under wraps Thursday, thumping the Butte Bulldogs 62-42 in boys’ basketball by roaming the paint.

The inside-out game was mainly inside at the Wolf Den, where Jaxson Olsen scored a game-high 22 points, including 10 free throws. Weston Price added 10, eight coming in a third-quarter surge that carried Glacier (1-2 overall and in the Western AA) out to a 51-31 lead.

Glacier took 12 3-pointers and made three, which was a mild surprise.

“A little bit,” said Olsen, a senior co-captain who added five rebounds and a blocked shot. “I thought we rebounded the ball super well and took it to the paint pretty well.

“We struggled our first two games but I thought it was a good bounce-back game for us.”

Glacier coach Mark Harkins had to agree: His team played without point guard Keifer Spohnhauer (ankle) and got limited minutes from Price because of fouls.

The Pack still got it done, with Olsen scoring nine points in a 21-point second quarter that put his team up 27-18.

“Jaxson always plays hard, is always one of our leading rebounders and he’s struggled to score the last two games,” Harkins said. “Tonight we saw he was very, very aggressive and got to the line and picked up the slack.”

Price scored over Butte’s 6-foot-8 Jake Olson to open the second half as Glacier started to take command. JT Allen’s up-and-under past Olson put the Pack up 40-25 midway through the third quarter.

A three from Colin Presnell started a 7-0 surge to close the third, and a triple from Will Salonen put the Wolfpack up 57-38 with 4:38 left in the game.

Presnell had six points and Connor Sullivan added seven off the Glacier bench. The Pack went 7-for-8 from the floor coming out of halftime.

“That’s a good quarter,” Harksin said. “We executed a lot of our sets in the half-court tonight. We didn’t just run motion, we ran a lot of sets and I thought the kids got good, high-percentage shots out of those sets and converted.

“I thought our bench kids all played great. Presnell, Sullivan. Weston, even though he didn’t score a lot, he took over for a while there and got us a cushion. Great team effort.”

Glacier’s next game is at Missoula Hellgate Saturday.

Butte 8 10 13 11 – 42

Glacier 6 21 24 211 – 62

BUTTE – Blake Drakos 0-6 0-0 0, Cael Stenson 1-6 2-6 4, Jake Olson 4-4 1-4 9, Bill Kelly 2-7 2-5 6, Zach Merrifield 0-2 0-0 0, Mikey O’Dell 3-5 1-4 8, Eric Loos 2-3 2-2 7, Kenley Leary 2-4 0-0 5, Cameron Guernsey 1-1 0-0 3, Jonas Sherman 0-0 0-0 0, Kooper Klobacar 0-0 0-0 0, Jace Stenson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-38 8-23 42.

GLACIER (1-2) – Jaxson Olsen 6-11 10-14 22, Weston Price 3-5 4-7 10, JT Allen 3-5 1-2 7, Will Salonen 2-5 0-2 5, Tyler Hausmann 0-1 0-0 0, Connor Sullivan 2-4 2-2 7, Colin Presnell 1-4 3-4 6, Luke Bilau 1-4 3-4 6, Ty Olsen 0-0 2-2 2, Noah Dowler 0-1 0- 0, Jackson Weber 0-0 0-0 0, Kayden Jessman 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 18-40 23-36 62.

3-point goals – Butte 4-17 (Gurnsey 1-1, Loos 1-1, O’Dell 1-1, Leary 1-2, Drakos 0-3, C. Stenson 0-5, Kelly 0-3, Merrifield 0-1). Glacier 3-12 (Presnell 1-1, Sullivan 1-3, Salonen 1-3, Dowler 0-1, Jessman 0-1, J. Olsen 0-2, Price -1, Allen 0-1). Rebounds – Butte 30 (O’Dell 6, Olson 6), Glacier 37 (Bilau 10, Salonen 8). Fouls – Butte 27, Glacier 18. Fouled out – O’Dell, Leary, Price. Steals – Butte 9 (O’Dell 3), Glacier 6 (Salonen 3). Blocks – Butte (4 (Olson 3, Kelly), Glacier 4 (Dowler 2, Price, J. Olsen). Turnovers – Butte 10, Glacier 11.

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