If there was any question whether the Mission Lady Bulldogs can compete, it may have just been answered.

After three road wins in three days this past weekend, Mission will be competing as the second place team in its division this week. It beat Noxon 51-24, Thompson Falls 40-37, and Plains 41-37, proving Mission can win the close ones as well as pull out the big win when the opportunity presents itself.

“I thought it was a great weekend for us,” head coach Les Rice said. “To win three road games in a row like that’s tough.”

In the first game the Lady Bulldogs found scorers all over its roster. A pair of Grants led, with senior Mattea Grant scoring 12 and sophomore Jonna Grant following closely behind with 11, but plenty of other girls found the twine as well.

Doing what a team leader needs to do to secure the big win, Mattea also led in rebounds with nine, steals with six and matched senior Kelsey Cable with three assists.

Rice said Mattea plays like a senior, chocking up pen marks all over the score sheet.

“She’s definitely our leader,” he said. “Some nights she’s our scoring leader and she’s always going to be right there leading us statistically in almost everything. She definitely is kind of leading us into each game.”

Again Mattea led in scoring against Thompson Falls, with 13. As the Bluehawks charged a solid lead Mission had established in the first three periods, Mission was still able to hold off the three-point win despite being out-scored by 10 in the fourth.

Against Plains things got close again, but this time at the result of a narrow Bulldog comeback.

Falling behind 16-5 in the first, Mission rallied back with a big surge in the second and third quarter to take control of the third and final game of the weekend. This time it was sophomore Kyla Mitchell, consistent scorer and occasional hero, who booked the scoring title with 14. Junior Katie McDonald scored 11.

While Rice didn’t feel his team played dramatically better than they had in recent games, he was perfectly fine with that. Slow and steady team building has been the plan all along and it has slowly pushed his girls into second place.

“I think we’re doing pretty well team-wise. You can see we’re having a lot of different people scoring and I think we’re settling in there pretty well,” he said.

He said using all of his girls including plenty off the bench has made his team a force to reckon with.

“We don’t have that girl that gets 25 rebounds,” he said. “Everybody gets us three or four.”

He said from boards to baskets, different players making things happen keeps opponents on their toes.

“It makes it more difficult to stop,” he said. “You can’t just stop one. Ten pieces of the puzzle are attacking and hopefully we’ll get the job done.”

Mission plays at 6 p.m. on Friday at Ronan, then at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday at Charlo.