While anything can happen once the postseason begins, the girls Western 7B race for the top is pretty much a four-team competition.

And that competition is a jumbled lot to say the least, with one possible exception: the Mission Lady Bulldogs.

That basic fact became a little more clear after this weekend, when the Mission girls inflicted some eye-popping pain to 7B combatants, and then escaped with a one-point win over 6B Anaconda.

In establishing themselves as the top dogs in the 7B, Mission rolled over Thompson Falls this past Thursday, 62-41, handing the Lady Hawks their second league loss against three wins.

But T-Falls responded to that loss by handing Eureka their first conference defeat, 56-50, Saturday in Eureka.

And with the weird things that can and do happen during playoffs, it would be unwise to count anyone out of the race to the state championships during the first week of March.

Playoffs?

Believe it or not, they are coming up fast and the battle for conference seeding grows in significance.

Thursday night in St. Ignatius, Thompson Falls squeaked out to a 12-11 lead after one quarter of basketball in a meeting of two of the top teams in the conference. After two quarters of play, the Hawks and Bulldogs were locked in a 21-21 tie.

The second half was a different story, but it showed teams in the 7B that even Mission is vulnerable this year.

The third quarter saw the Bulldogs erupt for 25 points while holding T Falls to nine as they took a 46-30 lead with one quarter to play. Mission’s potent offense got double figure scoring from four different players en route to the 21 point win. Cora Mitt and Kiernan Incashola scored 14 each to lead Mission, while teammates Ellannah Flat Lip added 13 and Izzy Evans chipped in 11 for the victors.

The win moved Mission to 10-2 on the year and 5-0 in conference play, while T Falls dropped to 3-2 in 7B games and 7-5 overall.

Saturday night T Falls continued to run the gauntlet of teams atop the league when they rolled into Eureka to face the Lady Lions.

The results were much better.

T Falls took a16-12 lead over Eureka after one quarter of play and enlarged it to 33-23 at the half. This time it was the Lady Hawks who had multiple double figure scorers against Eureka, which lost its first 7B game of the season, although overall they fell to 5-7.

The Hawks continued to build on their halftime lead in the third quarter, outscoring the host team 15-6 to take a 49-29 lead with one quarter remaining in the game. Eureka put together a nice rally in the fourth quarter but it was too little, too late even after they trimmed 13 points off the third quarter lead.

Solveig Nygaard and Gabbi Hannum topped the Lady Hawks with 12 points each, while Addy Deal netted 11. Dylan Sharp paced Eureka with a game-high 18 points on the night.

The victory boosted T Falls to 8-5 on the year and left them with a 4-2 league mark.

Next up for Thompson Falls is a home game this Thursday (Feb 1) against Sanders County rival Plains, one of the top four in league standings. T Falls stays at home for a Saturday night game (Feb 3) against Eureka.