The Clark Fork Mountain Cats lost their first matchup at Divisionals in Hamilton, Feb. 22-24. They faced Arlee on Thursday and experienced their first loss of the season, 57-49. This moved Arlee to play Twin Bridges and pushed the Cats into a loser-out game against Lone Peak on Friday at 10:30 a.m.

From Thursday’s loss, the Cats clawed their way back up through the consolation bracket. In their game against Lone Peak they won, 61-34, where Madison Lommen put up 21 points. Madison Mask had 12, Kenzie Mueller and Hailey Kelly with 9 each, Montanna Baughman 7, Margaret Parkin 2, and Emmah Baughman, 1.

The Lady Cats then faced Charlo with a nail-biting win, 50-48. It was a loser-out game with Kenzie Mueller putting up an impressive 26 points, Madison Mask 10, Madison Lommen 7, Hailey Kelly 4, Montanna Baughman 2 and Margaret Parkin 1.

The Cats continued their climb when they faced Manhattan Christian, with a 63-39 win. In that game, Madison Lommen put up a score of 20 and Kenzie Mueller, Hailey Kelly and Montanna Baughman all added 12 points each to the win, and Madison Mask with 9 points.

In an earlier game, Manhattan Christian faced Arlee in a loser-out consolation game and Manhattan won in another close contest, 44-42. The championship game on Friday was Ennis versus Twin Bridges where Twin won in yet another nail-biter, 37-35.

This pulled Ennis into a challenge game with the Mountain Cats on Monday at 5 p.m. for second place and a chance at State in Butte, March 8-10. Scores from that game were not available by press time but are available online at vp-mi.com.

In boys basketball, Arlee played Plains for the championship and won, 77-33. Plains also faced a challenge game on Monday against Manhattan Christian.