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Tuesday, January 03 RESULTS/STATS
| DILLON 57 CAPITAL 51 |
| BILLINGS CENTRAL 69 SENIOR 68 |
| COLSTRIP 56 GLENDIVE 47 |
Fast start not enough for Bruins
Early in the second half Tuesday night, a big corner 3 looked headed for the Bruins’ side of the scoreboard.
The look was open and the shot appeared to be true.
Instead, the ball wedged itself smartly against the back-iron, between rim and backboard.
It was that kind of night for the Capital High boys, who dropped their fifth straight, a 57-51 nonconference contest against Class A power Dillon at the Bears’ Den. The game was a rescheduled affair, wiped out before the Christmas break by the season’s first real winter weather.
“We were real close tonight. I felt like there was good progress -- and that’s what I told them,” Capital coach Guy Almquist said. “And for the first time, I felt like instead of just playing hard, we talked about that next level is being competitive. I felt like our competitive spirit tonight was good. We battled. And things weren’t all going right, but I thought tonight we really battled.
“That’s a good basketball team. There’s some high-level players on that team. That team could play in our league, in the middle of our league, easily.”
Included in that group of high-level players is Troy Andersen. The senior was hitting early and often for the visitors, and finished with a game-high 27 points. That total includes six 3-pointers.
Andersen sparked his team through the first three quarters, but it was fellow senior Tanner Haverfield who helped the Beavers put the game away in the fourth. He scored 17 for Dillon, with 10 of those coming in the final eight minutes.
“It’s great to be back on the floor,” Andersen said. “We practiced hard over Christmas break and were kind of anxious to get back out here, so it was fun.
“It kind of took a while to knock the dust off, but once we settled in on defense and got some stops, that kind of ignited our offense and things went well from there.”
That slow start helped Capital (1-5) to a lead early, the Bruins up 16-9 after the first quarter. Eight of those points belonged to Andersen, a Haverfield free throw the only other score in the frame.
After several scoreless second-quarter minutes, though, Dillon began to chip away. The Class A squad pulled to within one, 16-15, before the Bruins’ Marcus Welnel finally scored the first points of the quarter for the home team. Willie Gross added to the lead with a three-point play, but Dillon never went away. And, off a missed 3-pointer with time expiring, Dillon’s Michael Haverfield scored his only points of the night, the put-back tying the game at 25.
That momentum continued in the third for Dillon, which grabbed the lead with a nice backdoor layup bookended by a pair of 3-pointers to make it 33-27. Andersen stretched that lead to seven with his fifth trey of the night, coming with just five seconds left in the third.
That’s when Tanner Haverfield stepped into the spotlight, draining a 3-pointer and then burning the Bruins on repeated drives down the lane. His bucket with two minutes to play made it a 10-point advantage, but Capital did manage to scratch back.
The Bruins’ Matt McGinley hit his third 3-pointer of the night with 47 seconds to play, making it a five-point Dillon lead. But the Beavers were solid at the free-throw line and Capital never seriously threatened the lead in the final minute.
Still, Almquist was thrilled with the fight shown by his team.
“I thought there was a point in the third quarter, with five, six minutes to go, we could’ve folded, and we didn’t. And that was good -- we shouldn’t. We work too hard to do that,” he said. “Compared to how we’ve been playing, it was improvement. And I think we really need to feel good about that. Because these kids are working too hard to not see some of that. So I think it will be good to see some of that good play on film.
“Dillon’s a great test for us. Their 1-3-1, I thought we did a great job -- they had to get out of it. And not too many teams force us out of that. Their pressure hurt us, of course. We’ve struggled more against the pressure than the zone. Even when they mixed the zone, I thought we did a good job passing in and out. We had good shots. Whether or not we made them or not is a different story, but we had good shots.”
Bradley Haller led the way for Capital with 15 points, while McGinley had 13 and Gross had nine.
Capital will play again on Friday, when they get another test on a road trip to Great Falls (5-1).
Dillon, meanwhile, will jump back into Class A play – and will do so with even more confidence after Tuesday’s win.
“We get to play Class AA teams three or four times a year, and we always get geared up for them,” Andersen said. “We know it’s gonna be a challenge for us, but it’s fun to gauge where you’re at.”
Dillon 57, Capital 51
Dillon;9;16;13;19;--;57
Capital;16;9;6;20;--;51
Dillon – Michael Haverfield 1 0-0 2, Jamey Richardson 1 0-1 3, Kyson Wilson 1 4-4 6, Troy Andersen 9 3-4 27, Tanner Haverfield 6 4-7 17, Clay Allison 1 0-2 2. Totals 19 11-18 57.
Capital – Matt McGinley 5 0-0 13, Marcus Welnel 2 0-0 4, Brennan Casey 2 0-0 5, Mark Northey 2 0-0 5, Michael Nettleton 1 2-2 4, Willie Gross 2 5-8 9, Bradley Haller 7 1-2 15, Peyton Koch 0 1-2 1. Totals 19 9-14 51.
3-pointers – Dillon 8 (Andersen 6, Richardson 1, T. Haverfield 1), Capital 4 (McGinley 3, Northey 1). Total fouls – Dillon 16, Capital 17.
Dixon's free throw lifts Billings Central past Billings Senior 69-68
Billings Central and Billings Senior got the New Year started off with a bang as Chrishon Dixon knocked down one of two free throws with five seconds remaining in the game to give the Rams a 69-68 victory over the visiting Broncs.
Shay Dantic lead Central in scoring with 18, including the Ram’s first seven points while Dixon finished with 13.
“We just got off of a huge break where we had a ton of practices in a row,” Dantic said. “Maybe we felt a little rusty going out but I had a lot of confidence. Got to credit my teammates for believing in me. It makes it easy.”
After grabbing a 33-25 lead at half, Central jumped to as much as a 14-point lead midway through the third quarter. However, the Broncs closed the gap thanks to big second half performances from Connor Kieckbusch and Nate Dick.
Dick scored a game-high 20 points while Kieckbusch finished the game with 15 points, all in the second half. Braxton Haws had 16 for Senior (2-1).
Trailing 61-55 with 3:23 left in the game, Dick scored on a break-away layup and knocked down a three to make it 61-60. Immediately following, Central’s Jet Campbell responded with a three of his own, followed by another Dick three. Dantic knocked down a jumper, which was followed by a three-point play from Kieckbusch which tied the game at 66 with just over a minute left in the game.
On the following possession, Dixon missed a layup but it was tapped back in by Johnny Elliott to give the Rams a 68-66 lead with 1:11 left. Haws then followed that up with a jumper to tie it again with about 43 seconds remaining in the game.
“We were just out of sorts that first half,” Senior coach Drew Haws said. “(In those final three minutes) we were just trying to get one stop. We thought if we could get one stop then we’d be okay, and we had one but we gave up the offensive rebound and put back so that was hard but it was there.”
Dixon was then fouled driving to the basket with 5.8 seconds left in the game after the Rams held the ball for the final possession.
He made the first one, and that was all he needed.
“Thank God,” Dantic said, laughing in reaction to Dixon’s made free throw. “Thank God.”
Central coach Jim Stergar, who used to coach the Broncs, said he was just happy to be playing a game again.
“I’m just glad we showed up tonight. Anything can happen in a game like this,” he said. “I thought we did a nice job of keeping our poise down the stretch and making enough plays, including Chrishon’s free throw down the stretch to seal it. You want your point guard on the free throw line at the end of the game to seal the deal and that’s what he did for us.”
Central will host conference foe Miles City on Friday while the Broncs get one day off before hosting the Laurel Locomotives on Thursday.
Billings Central 69, Billings Senior 68
Billings Senior 17 16 18 18 — 69
Billings Central 18 7 19 24 — 69
Billings Senior: Braxton Haws 16, Connor Kieckbusch 15, Nate Dick 20, Triston Whiteman 5, Slade Cobb 7, Sam Evenson 5.
Billings Central: Chrishon Dixon 13, Peyton Hanser 9, Andrew Nelson 3, Johnny Elliott 7, Jet Campbell 8, Shay Dantic 18, Isaac Meyer 3, Noah Gaudreau 8.
COLSTRIP 56 GLENDIVE 47
| Glendive | 11 | 13 | 14 | 11 | — | 47 |
| Colstrip | 18 | 10 | 16 | 12 | — | 56 |
Glendive: Logan LeProuse 19, Stephen Steinbron 17, Pacyn Partridge 3, Lane Walker 3, Jory Opp 3, David Skerritt 2.
Colstrip: P. Means 13, K. BigBack 10, I. Williams 8, J. Baer 7, D. Factor 6, J. McRae 6, A. Demontiney 6.
