Shutout in the Shootout

Call it growing pains of the basketball kind.

The young Thompson Falls Blue Hawks hosted the boys' portion of the first-ever District 1B-7B Shootout last week, falling 52-47 to the Conrad Cowboys Friday and 76-34 to the Choteau Bulldogs Saturday at TFHS gym.

Thompson Falls coach Jake Mickelson cited his team's youth and inexperience playing with each other as factors in last week's games. He thought the Hawks probably should have won the game with Conrad in any event.

"We felt like we might have let one get away from us there," he said. "We didn't execute very well all weekend. We are a young team and are going to need to work through some stuff."

Mickelson and the Hawks have another chance to work through some things in a non-conference game at Florence Thursday, their only scheduled action of the upcoming week.

"Florence is pretty young, too," Mickelson offered. "I think we match up

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well with them, it should be a good game."

Ryan Schraeder and Grant Lundberg led the Hawks against Conrad with 16 and 10 points each, respectively, Ethan Brown added eight, Trey Fisher five, Nate Willhite four and Nathan Schraeder and Riley Riffle two apiece.

Choteau's Sayer Patton, perhaps one of the best prep players in Montana at any classification level, led the Bullodgs past the Hawks Saturday. Patton netted 35 points versus Thompson Falls.

"He is one of the best players we will see this season, their other starters are tough and they have some good role players," Mickelson said of Choteau. "I expect them to compete at the state level pretty well later on, too."

Choteau also roared past Eureka Friday night. Eureka edged past Conrad in the other game in the tournament Saturday.

Riffle collected a team-high 10 points against Choteau, Cody Burk added eight, Lundberg five, Willhite four, Brown and Nathan Schraeder three apiece and Fisher one.

Shane Willekes added nine points and Acton eight to Choteau's winning total.