Bobcats to face Alberton in 14C tourney
JOHN HAMILTON | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 months AGO
Alberton Lady Panther Freshman Layla Hill gives Hot Springs Lady Savage Heat freshman Eleanor Massey the evil eye while protecting the ball during last Thursday night basketball game. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
It’s called finishing strong, and that is just what the Superior Bobcats did last week.
Entering this week’s District 14C tournament as the No. 3 seed, the dark horse Bobcats will open play in the tourney at 5:15 p.m. Thursday at Linderman Gym in Polson against No. 6 Alberton. The top three finishing teams from the 14C tourney move on to the Western C tourney at the Maroon Activity Center in Butte Feb. 26-28.
Coach Jake McElroy and his dangerous Bobcats finished regular season action with two stout efforts last week, losing, but losing only 55-42 to unbeaten St. Regis after briefly holding the lead early in the fourth quarter in St. Regis Friday and avenging an earlier loss at Noxon with a 83-40 win over the visiting Red Devils in Superior Saturday.
The Bobcats’ final regular season record is 5-5 in 14C play and 11-7 overall.
McElroy actually credits Noxon for kickstarting the Bobcats’ season by upsetting Superior in Noxon several weeks ago. Since that painful loss in the West End of Sanders County, the Bobcats have steadily gotten better, as was clearly on display last week.
“I’m proud of how we have showed up, how we have competed lately, and you can trace that back to that Noxon game,” he said. “We have kind of refocused since then. Have become more about us and we than me. When we play as a team, good things can happen and I think we showed that last week.”
Against rival St. Regis, junior post player Landon Richards recorded another double double, scoring 17 points, pulling down 13 rebounds and passing out three assists, freshman Amarie Johnson threw down 11 points, Gannon Quinlan added eight points and eight assists, Logan Merrill four points and Phin Catlado two points and six assists.
See other story for St. Regis scoring.
“That was a great atmosphere for the St. Regis game,” McElroy said, “and we played a really solid game. It got away from us in the last three minutes but I was very pleased with how we competed in that game.”
Versus the Red Devils of Noxon in Superior Saturday, Richards scored 23 points, Quinlan and Cataldo 15 apiece, Merrill 14, Johnson nine, Henry Hanson six and Conrad Talbot one.
ARTICLES BY JOHN HAMILTON
Hawks compete at fast and furious Archie Roe meet
Serious fast and furious; that’s the way the action rolls at the prestigious Archie Roe Meet in Kalispell.
Hawks await playoff fate
The playoff fate of the Blue Hawks is in the hands of others as Northern conference teams head into the final week of regular season play, but you won’t find coach Jared Koskela and his scrappy young squad fretting about it. They just want to play another day, whichever way they have to do that.
Local excel in Gary Thompson Invitational
It wasn’t originally scheduled to go down this way, but the 2026 Gary Thompson Invitational was held at River’s Bend outside of Thompson Falls May 5, and local players dotted the leader board at tourney’s end.