HAMILTON — After an impressive showing two weeks ago at the District 6-B Tournament in Hamilton, the Mission Lady Bulldogs were riding a wave of momentum heading into the divisional tournament.

Unfortunately, a tough weekend shooting the basketball and an injury to one of their top players at districts ended their season, though head coach Les Rice was pleased with how the year turned out.

HAMILTON — After an impressive showing two weeks ago at the District 6-B Tournament in Hamilton, the Mission Lady Bulldogs were riding a wave of momentum heading into the divisional tournament.

Unfortunately, a tough weekend shooting the basketball and an injury to one of their top players at districts ended their season, though head coach Les Rice was pleased with how the year turned out.

On Thursday, Feb. 23, six different Lady Bulldogs scored, but Mission fell to Bigfork for the second time on the season, 44-24.

“Bigfork made shots,” Rice said. “We focused on three girls while on defense. We did what we wanted, they just executed and made the shots they had.”

Bigfork was hot from the opening tip, scoring 13 points in the first and 11 more in the second to take a 24-12 halftime lead.

The Valkyries kept the scoring coming in the second half, outscoring the Lady Bulldogs 10-5 in the third and 10-7 in the fourth to knock Mission into a loser-out game the next day.

Cecelia Koskela and Stephanie Lewandowski each led the Lady Bulldogs with seven points in the defeat.

The following day against Deer Lodge, Mission fell behind big early thanks to another sharp-shooting night from their opponents as their season ended in a 53-16 defeat. The Lady Wardens couldn’t miss early on, taking a 14-3 lead after the first quarter and a 37-8 halftime lead.

“I didn’t think we did bad defensively, they just executed well,” Rice said. “What could you do? We just tried to keep up with them shot for shot.”

Mission, meanwhile, had trouble scoring and, unable to buy a basket, couldn’t close the gap on a Deer Lodge team that kept firing in the third quarter, using a 14-6 period to take a 51-14 lead en route to the victory.

Lewandowski stepped up, scoring 14 of Mission’s 16 points, in defeat.

“Stephanie had a great tournament, worked hard, was aggressive and knocked down some shots,” Rice said. “We had a heck of a time scoring. Those were the two toughest teams to score on that we played all season.”

The Lady Bulldogs were forced to play without senior Bryanna Steele, who tore her ACL in their district matchup with Loyola on Feb. 17.

“I was wondering how it’d affect us and it affected us a great deal,” Rice said. “Rotation-wise, we don’t play a lot of our girls which hurt us with fatigue and we had a hard time making up for the points she scores. We never complained about what didn’t go well for us.”

Even in defeat, Rice was very pleased with his team’s performance and how the team developed as the season went along. The Lady Bulldogs rallied from an 0-7 start to make noise in the postseason.

“I’m very happy with the season,” Rice said. “I would have liked to have had a better showing at divisionals, but I’m proud of how our girls progressed and got better week to week. We overcame obstacles and got better as the season went on.”

MISSION VS D-LODGE

Mission - 3 - 5 - 6 - 2 - 16

D-Lodge - 14 - 23 - 14 - 2 - 53

Lady Bulldogs scoring - Stephanie Lewandowski 14, Cecelia Koskela 1, Katrina Stevens 1

MISSION VS BIGFORK

Mission - 6 - 6 - 5 - 7 - 24

Bigfork - 13 - 11 - 10 - 10 - 44

Lady Bulldogs scoring - Cecelia Koskela 7, Stephanie Lewandowski 7, Katrina Stevens 4, Loren Erickson 2, Twyla Hogge 2, Carley Elverude 2