LIBBY — Shooting troubles plagued the Mission girls at districts, but the Bulldogs gritted their teeth and fought through it just the same. It wasn’t pretty but after a 46-34 loss to Thompson Falls in the semis and a 40-30 win over Plains in the consolation final, the Bulldogs are headed into the Class 7-B divisional tournament as a three seed.

Against Thompson Falls, Mission stayed with the Bluehawks, but despite a stellar performance from Mission senior Mattea Grant, let shooting woes drag it down.

Mattea finished with 16 rebounds and four steals in addition to her 18 points. But the team shot only 22 percent from the field and 17 percent at the line. Thompson Falls brought its game, but some of the blame was on the Bulldogs, Mission head coach Les Rice said.

“Some of that was just them playing good defense and forcing us to take bad shots, but we still had 22 offensive rebounds and did manage 13 points off of them,” Rice said, “In our half court offense we just did nothing.”

After Mattea, there wasn’t a lot of scoring on the Mission side of things, but sophomore Adessa Durglo came out with six and junior Katie McDonald scored five.

The next game the Bulldogs shot better, and buckled down defensively to take their win and their third place standing.

“Defensively I thought we played exceptionally well. Other than that second quarter when they had  a little run, I thought we played really well defensively,” Rice said.

If you can’t score a ton of points then making the other team score less will do the trick, it seems. If Plains’ 14-8 second quarter run upset the Bulldogs, they sure took care of business after the break, allowing the Trotters only eight points in the whole second half.

Mission improved at the free throw line in the game. This time they went 5-for-7 and there were plenty of other team and individual stats to be proud of afterward.

The team battled for 21 offensive rebounds and 35 total rebounds in the game, gave up only 10 turnovers and stole the ball 14 times. With those kind of numbers, a better day shooting could have put the Trotters in a world of hurt.

McDonald scored 13 to lead her team, tallying 11 of those in the first, just to make sure her team got on the right track after the loss to Thompson Falls.

Mattea had nine and senior Kelsey Cable had eight, a season high, Rice said. Mattea had 13 rebounds, five steals and four assists, another absurdly productive evening in other words.

Sophomore Jonna Grant had eleven rebounds, a season high for her as well, Rice said.

Mission plays four seed Florence at 9:15 p.m. at the Girls Western “B” Divisional Tournament at the SKC in Pablo.

Rice said he is familiar with the team.

Florence has some tall players, and managed to split with Thompson Falls this past. Rice has seen his team compete all season and seen them shoot very well in many games. It’s going to take both to be a contender at the divisional tournament, he said.

“It will be a challenge for us,” he said. “We can’t shoot 22 percent and 19 percent from the line and expect to win. We’ve got to shoot better.”