ST. IGNATIUS - The Mission Lady Bulldogs had a big conference

win over Troy that erased the thought of two losses earlier in the

week to Noxon and Bigfork.

ST. IGNATIUS - The Mission Lady Bulldogs had a big conference win over Troy that erased the thought of two losses earlier in the week to Noxon and Bigfork.

The Lady Vikings handed Mission a 51-9 loss on Jan. 4, the Lady Bulldogs' first defeat of the season.

"They just shot so much better than us," head coach Les Rice said. "They're very, very good. It may have lingered with us in the Noxon game for a while."

Against Noxon on Thursday, the Lady Red Devils saw an Air Jordan-worthy performance by guard Kim Marich who tallied 30 points in the game.

"She was a one-man wrecking crew," Rice said.

The first quarter was not kind to the Lady Bulldogs as they had fallen behind Bigfork 21-6 in the first, which set the tone for the rest of the game and Noxon outscored them 20-13 in the first quarter of their game en route to a 51-32 victory.

"We gave up too many points and too many easy shots," Rice said.

The trend wouldn't continue on Friday, as the Lady Bulldogs got the early jump on Troy.

"Our gameplan was that we were not going to give up 20 points in the first quarter, no matter what," Rice said. "It was important for us to get off to a good start."

The odds were stacked against Mission though, as they had a long bus trip a day after playing Noxon at home.

"I was worried about the energy," Rice said. "It was our third game in four days and it was our first real long road game."

Mission jumped out to a 16-6 lead in the first quarter and then held the Lady Trojans to just nine second-half points for the 46-27 victory.

"What went wrong in the first two games went right in this one," Rice said.

LaGlenn Mitchell had a season-high 10 points, and Kyla Mitchell led the Lady Bulldogs with 14. In all, seven Mission players scored in the game.

"Ashley Courville played great, great defense," Rice said. "We just had contributions from everybody."