It’s big game season for the Hot Springs Savage Heat.

As the regular season winds down, a very big game is lining up for coach Brady Ovitt and his Savage Heat girls basketball team.

By virtue of their monumental 41-40 win over the Charlo Vikings in Hot Springs earlier this season, coach Brady Ovitt and his Heat now have an opportunity to control their own destiny and win the District 14C regular season title.

All they have to do now is go into Charlo Feb. 5 and do it again, beat the Vikes and it’s likely that you could be in. Of course, Charlo will not be pushovers as evidenced by their two wins this season over Superior, a team that has given the Heat fits.

Also of course, both teams will have to take care of their 14C business up until then.

In their games last week, the Heat split with Mineral County teams, defeating the Tigers 42-26 in St. Regis Tuesday and falling to the Bobcats 60-41 in Superior Friday. Hot Springs, Charlo and Superior are now involved in a complicated three-way race that, barring unforeseen circumstances, could rely on that Feb. 5 game in Charlo. It could also involve all three teams ending up with two losses in 14C play and a three-way tie in final standings, and Hot Springs holds the tiebreaker in that event.

Up this week for the Heat is a non-conference game at Sanders County rival Plains Tuesday and an important 14C game at Noxon Saturday.

“We could end up as the top seed if we can take care of business first, go into Charlo and win that game,” Ovitt said. “It’s a tall task, beating Charlo twice in the regular season, but we would look forward to being in that situation.”

In the meantime there are those other games though. The Heat took control of last Tuesday’s game with St. Regis with a 9-2 win of the third quarter.

Quickly closing in on the 1,000 point mark for her career, Kara Christensen led the Heat to the win over the Tigers with 18 points, Callie Cano scored 13, Eleanor Massey six, Mackenzie Johnson and Kora Hensrude two apiece and Ziah Hensrude one.

Against Superior, Christensen scored 17 to lead the Heat and Kora Hensrude added eight. See other story for Superior scoring.