Rockin' the oldies

It just goes to show that winning never goes out of style.

The Thompson Falls Lady Hawks, wearing the same uniforms as a previous generation of Hawks who won the Western B championship in 2003 did, swept past Anaconda 64-49 at TFHS Saturday.

Sporting those old championship duds of Falls legends like Katie Holleran, Amanda Grazier and Victoria Kazmierczak wore so successfully so many years ago, the Hawks looked the part of divisional champs in the way they worked past a very good Anaconda team.

The win left the Hawks with an impressive win-loss record of 12-2 while the Lady Copperheads of District 6B fell to a still-respectable 9-5.

Sitting at 4-1 in District 7B play with only three league regular season games remaining, the Lady Hawks have a non-conference date with unbeaten, No. 1 ranked Loyola in Missoula Thursday before returning to Thompson Falls to host Eureka in a key 7B contest Saturday.

Currently unranked, the Lady Hawks did make an appearance in the poll two weeks ago at No. 10.

Loyola has become well known for its aggressive, full-court pressure defense. Lady Hawk coach Chadd Laws said his team will not alter their playing style to accommodate Loyola's.

"We are going to play our game, take care of our stuff," he said. "Loyola likes to scramble the action, it will be interesting to see how we respond to them, and it will also be interesting to see how they react to us."

The Lady Hawks played like a house afire against Anaconda, flying out to an 11-0 lead. Clearly rattled early on, the Copperheads called a timeout with the score 13-3 but it didn't help stem the tide.

Two Jody Detlaff buckets later (the first one off a nice interior feed from Riley Wilson), the 'Heads were now down 17-3, and another timeout by Anaconda did not make any difference.

The Hawks closed out the quarter with Faith Frields hitting a runner in the key and Elli Baxter burying a 3-pointer with about 20 seconds left to take a 22-4 lead into the second.

The Hawks' lead crested at 29-6 early in the second quarter when Frields nailed another trey. Try as they might, the Copperheads never did get back into the game after that.

The Lady Hawks went on to win in spite of the fact that Elli Pardee, a key player in the Lady Hawks' rotation, sat it out with concussion protocols. Pardee is expected back in the lineup this week, Laws said.

"We started that game real well, got the good lead and held them off from there," Laws said. "Our guards passed the ball well to our inside players, and that opened up some opportunities from the outside."

Nominated for Western Montana player of the week honors based on her performance, Megan Baxter scored 22 points to lead the Lady Hawks, Detlaff and Frields added 13 each, Wilson eight, Ellie Baxter six and Caity Alexander two.

Megan Baxter cleared 12 rebounds, Belle Cooper nine and Detlaff eight, Wilson and Frields passed out five assists each and Ellie Baxter, Detlaff and Megan Baxter three each. Megan Baxter also blocked three shots and Cooper two.

Isabel Saltenberger scored 16 points to lead Anaconda and Logan Stetzner added 11.

In other action last week, the Lady Hawks defeated Troy 54-8 in Troy Tuesday, Jan. 29.

The Baxter sisters scored 13 points apiece to lead the Lady Hawk win, Detlaff scored 11, Wilson seven, Pardee four, Frields three, Danni VanHuss two and Reagan Hanks one.