The Valley Journal

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Aaric Bryan/Valley Journal

Ronan’s Tailyr Irvin is fouled as two Whitefish defenders converge on her to stop a Maiden fast break.

By Aaric Bryan
Valley Journal
You would have thought they had done it too many times to count. With their teammate at the line with less than a second to play and the Maidens holding on to a 42-32 lead over Whitefish at home Saturday night, Alice Van Gunten, Nina Orozco and Taylor Lynch stood stoically at the center of the court.
After the ball bounced off the rim and the buzzer sounded to give the Maidens their first win in nearly three years, the three calmly ran off the court showing little excitement. But, once in the locker room they were overcome with the emotion that comes with snapping a 29-game losing streak.
“We tried to keep our cool, but most of us, or at least one of us started to cry. It got really emotional,” said sophomore point guard Orozco, who finished with 10 points, five assists, four steals and was instrumental in handling the Lady Bulldogs’ full-court press in the final minutes.
Orozco started her career at Ronan 0-22 and knows how losing game after game damages a team’s esteem. But she said the win changes everything. ........
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Jim Blow/Valley Journal

Polson guard Mariah Hamel slides down the lane and puts up a floater in Stevensville Saturday. Hamel finished the game with nine points.

By Jim Blow
Valley Journal
STEVENSVILLE — The Christmas break took its toll on Polson's Lady Pirate basketball team and it showed in a close-but-no-cigar 52-47 in Stevensville Saturday afternoon.
Just when they needed it most, the Lady Pirates were missing forward Nicole Davey, who was not yet back from visiting family, and may have lost fellow forward Marlee Berry for the season. Berry injured her knee three days earlier at practice while running a three-man weave drill.
Missing two of their inside girls didn't help as Polson tried to battle against the Lady Yellowjackets' phenom post, freshman Alycia Sims. Sims led Stevensville with 18 points and, like her teammates, played a very physical game that Polson found hard to defend.
The Lady Pirates hung around in the first half, trailing by just three (21-18) at the half. But Stevi went on a 14-5 run in the third quarter to pull ahead 35-23.....

By Jim Blow
Valley Journal
RONAN — So many circles, so little time.
A group of dedicated runners decided to end the year by running a whole bunch of circles — 288 of them, actually.
The 13 runners teamed up in a marathon relay at the Ronan Middle School running track to raise more than $1,000 that will benefit Myotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) research. Current and former members of the Ronan cross country team organized the relay in memory of Linda Decker, the wife of cross country coach Gale Decker who passed away from ALS on Oct. 23.
The 26-mile, 385-yard marathon equated to 288 and one-third laps around the top-deck running track inside the Ronan Event Center. The group started the run at 5 p.m. on Dec. 31 and finished in 2 hours, 59.57 seconds.
"We'd talked about trying to beat the world record (of 2:03.59), but we were a little off that," Noelle Decker laughed. "But we had a lot of fun."
The group ran two or three laps in succession before handing off the relay baton to the next runner. Eleven laps around the track equated to a mile, so everyone ran about two miles total, or 22.1 laps.
On the last 13 individual laps, everyone ran as fast as they could. Abby Luke finished the individual runs in the next-to-the-last lap, then everyone ran the final lap as a group.
The donations had topped $1,000 by Monday, which will go to the Blazeman Foundation in memory of Linda Decker. Jonathan "Blazeman" Blais was a triathlete who succumbed to ALS in 2007. The foundation in his name raises money for cutting-edge research toward finding a cure for ALS.......
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Aaric Bryan/Valley Journal

Warrior Beau Couture powers his way through a crowd of Lincoln defenders for a shot after pulling down a rebound in a game before the break. Couture came off the bench to score nine points against Superior Saturday.

By Aaric Bryan
Valley Journal
ARLEE — The Warriors showed no rust from a long layoff, easily taking care of the Superior Bobcats 80-40 at home Saturday in their first game back from the Christmas break.
Using their pressure defense to fuel their fast break, the Warriors jumped out to a 19-9 first quarter lead and never looked back.
“We came out and pressed them early. John (Sansavere) hit a couple of 3’s and Kyle (Felsman) hit a 3 to give us a lead and we just went from there,” Arlee coach Clyde Tucker said.
Sansavere finished with 13 points, despite little playing time in the second half. The senior guard, who was mainly a backup last year, was coming off a 21-point performance against Lincoln before the break and is just one more player that opposing defenses will have to worry about.
“He’s a pretty smooth little player that a lot people don’t really notice, but he knows when to pass and when to shoot the ball and has a pretty good shot,” Tucker said. “He’s another player teams will have to guard.”
The 40-point victory was a team effort with all the Warriors finishing on the scorer’s sheet.
“I had 10 suited up and I had 10 players score,” Tucker said.
Kyle Felsman, the Warriors’ 6-foot forward, led the balanced attack finishing with 16 points. Felsman also had four rebounds and three assists. Felsman has average nearly 13 points a game in the Warriors’ first six games this season ......
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By Aaric Bryan
Valley Journal
EUREKA — The Lady Bulldogs finished the toughest stretch of their season by playing their best game of the year, but still came up short.
Playing their fourth game in five nights, the Lady Bulldogs trailed the Lady Lions 36-34 with less than three minutes to play in Eureka Tuesday night, but faltered down the stretch for a 42-34 loss.
"That was definitely the best game we played this year by far," Mission coach Les Rice said. "There's definitely things we need to fix, but all in all it was good to see improvement without any practices."
Heading into the game as losers of two of their last three games, the Lady Bulldogs had two goals: have a good first quarter and score more than 24 points. The Lady Bulldogs had finished with 24 points in the last three games and in their past two losses, Rice said they had been, "blown out of the water in the first quarter."
Against Eureka, the Bulldogs accomplished both of these things – only trailing 11-9 after the first frame and finishing with 34 points – and in a back-and-forth game had a chance to win in the final minutes, but went cold from the field.
"We had our opportunities. We had great looks at the basket we didn't capitalize on," Rice said.
The difference in the game was Lady Lion Steph Vogelman. Vogelman, who terrorized the Lady Bulldogs last year, finished with 18 points.
"We defended her well at times, but then we would let her have whatever she wanted," Rice said, adding that Vogelman scored eight or nine of her points on out-of-bounds plays.
Kyla Mitchell and Katie McDonald led the Lady Bulldogs with eight points apiece. Adessa Durglo added .......
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Mission's Bella Dally pops a short pull-up jumper
for two against Ronan before Christmas break.