Polson Pirates basketball coach Randy Kelley has seen a significant change in his team’s swagger after the winter break and it’s resulted in back-to-back victories to start the second half of the season.

“Offensively, our kids are getting a little confident in their ability to shoot the ball and our ball movement has been good the last two games,” Kelley said. “However, defensively we need to pick it up a little bit.”

One area Kelly noticed a significant improvement in was driving to the basket and converting their free throw opportunities.

“I thought in the last two games we did a pretty good at the free throw line,” Kelley said. “We were 22-of-27 from the free throw line, and we shot 72-percent and 74-percent. The kids were trying to get to the line and just looking for their shot.”

During the break, Wilson said his team put a lot of emphasis on transition baskets.

“We worked on transition stuff, pushing the ball out and worked a lot on our offensive scheme,” Kelley said. “We probably should have worked some more on our defensive scheme. We need to go back to work on defense and see what we want to get done in order to keep the momentum going.”

Kelley said, at this juncture of the season, he isn’t concerned with victories.

“I don’t look at wins and losses,” Kelley said. “I look at what we can do to get better. We still have a ways to go and I believe that and the kids believe that too. We are a pretty good basketball team but struggle in the third quarter. That has been our nemesis. We usually have the lead coming out at halftime and then we start to get complacent. That is something that we need to fix.”

With the Pirates’ Friday game against Frenchtown at Frenchtown High School, they will be challenged by Austin Means, a 6-foot, 8-inch forward.

“(Means) is solid and that Price kid is a good leader on the floor at the point guard position,” Kelley said. “They have some good young players and they know don’t know any better. They just go out and play hard. It’s going to be a tough game for us and we are going to have to play a solid game.”

The Pirates will then travel to play Libby Saturday at Libby High School.

“They’ve been down a little bit but their kids can come out and play hard,” Kelly said. “They have an all-state golfer who shot 11 three-pointers and he’s only a sophomore. When you are playing against a kid that shoots like that, it makes for an interesting game.”

Polson 74, C Falls 62

C. Falls 8 16 22 16 – 62

Polson 19 23 8 24 – 74

COLUMBIA FALLS – Logan Stephens 14, Dakota Bridwell 14, DJ Schrade 14, Austin Green 11, Matthew Morrison 5, LJ Panasuk 2, Quintin Schriver 2.

POLSON – Jaydon Bautista 6 3-5 19, Jeremiah NorthPiegan 7 3-3 17, Tanner Wilson 5 3-4 15, Matt Rensvold 3 9-13 15, Connor Lanier 3 0-0 6, Shade Main 0 2-2 2.

3FGs – CF6 (Schrade 4, Green, Stephens), P6-16 (Bautista 4, Wilson 2). *36REB (Rensvold *12, NorthPiegan *8, Bautista 6, Wilson *4, Main *3, Johnson, Lanier *2). *17ASST (Johnson *5, Rensvold *2, Wilson *4, Bautista *4, NorthPiegan 2). 6STL (Johnson 3, Rensvold 2, Wilson). (Sa07Jan17)

Asterisk (*) denotes stat variant(s) where JCH personal tally differs from sideline specs: P49r/P14a: Rensvold 16r3a, NorthPiegan 13r, Wilson 7r3a, Bautista 6r2a, Main 5r, Lanier 1r, Johnson 4a.

Polson 58, Stevensville 44

Stevi 9 13 7 15 – 44

Polson 14 17 12 15 – 58

STEVENSVILLE – Jared Kingsbury 15, Chayse Richards 8, Luis Estrada 8, Dalton Bragg 7, James Fry 6.

POLSON – Tanner Wilson 4 9-10 19, J’von Johnson 5 5-6 16, Matthew Rensvold 3 2-6 8, Jaydon Bautista 3 0-0 7, Shade Main 6, Jeremiah North Peigan 2.

3FG – S6 (Kingsbury 3, Estrada-Ortiz 2, Bragg), P4-11 (Wilson 2, Bautista, Johnson). 39REB (Rensvold 14, Johnson 6, Bautista 6, Main 6, NorthPiegan 3, Connor Lanier 3, Wilson). 12ASST (NorthPiegan 4, Wilson 3, Rensvold *2, Bautista 2, *Main). 8STL (Wilson *3, Bautista *2, Johnson, NorthPiegan, *Main, *Rensvold). 1BLK (Rensvold).