WHY WAIT?

Why wait? Why not get it going now?

Noxon boys basketball coach Bart Haflich thinks his team needs to start getting its act together, and needs to do that right now.

In search of better seeding position heading into the tournament season, which is right around the corner in mid-February, the Devils have two important District 14C conference games this week at St. Regis Friday and at Charlo Saturday.

“We need to string some wins together here in the latter part of the season,” Haflich said. “It would be nice to go into the tournament with some momentum, we need every conference game we can get between now and then.”

The Red Devils split games in Noxon last week, losing 44-34 to Sanders County rival Thompson Falls in in a non-conference game Tuesday (Jan. 15) and coming back to top the Two Eagle River Eagles 67-43 in a 14C conference game Friday.

Haflich was not impressed with the Devils’ offense against Thompson Falls although the defense they played against the Hawks was sufficient enough.

“We played pretty good defense, held them to 44 points,” he said, “but just didn’t play well on offense, made some bad passes that led to easy scores for them.”

Still, Haflich said the Devils were able to creep to within four points in the third quarter before finally falling back. The Hawks had seized control of the game by winning the first quarter 15-4 and then held onto that lead the rest of the way.

Rylan Weltz led the Devils with 10 points, Alex Currie scored eight, Logan Wood seven, Levi Brubaker six, Jeriko Smith two and Owen Fisher one. Please see other story for Thompson Falls scoring.

Against Two Eagle, the Devils broke open a tight game by winning the second quarter 25-8 and cruising in for the win from there.

Brubaker scored 16 points and pulled down 18 rebounds to lead the Red Devils, Wood and Currie added 15 points apiece, Weltz scored eight before turning his ankle and exiting the game, Smith six and Edison VanVleet two.

Travis Pierre, who hit “four or five 3s” in the third quarter, according to Haflcih, helped keep Two Eagle in the game and finished with 22 points to pace Two Eagle, but no other Eagle player managed more than five points.