George Ferguson Havre Daily News sports editor gferguson@havredailynews.com
GREAT FALLS If the Hays- Lodge Pole Thunderbirds already survived their hiccup in the 2007 Class C boys state basketball tournament, then the rest of the field better brace themselves for what’s to come. On Thursday afternoon, in the opening round of the state tournament at the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls, the top-ranked Thunderbirds brushed aside a rusty start and a double-digit first-quarter deficit, and proceeded to dismantle the talented Wibaux Longhorns, 84-65 to advance to tonight’s semifinal round. “They are a really good team, and we just got off to a bad start,” HLP head coach Charlie Ereaux said. “We turned the ball over way too much in the first quarter. I think it was something like we had eight (turnovers) and they had two. “And I also think they definitely had an advantage because they played last week and we haven’t played for two full weeks,” he added. “And we were definitely rusty in the first half. So that played a big part in how we started the game.” Indeed, the T-Birds fell behind a hotshooting Wibaux team 23-12 after the first quarter. The Longhorns got early 3-pointers from Travis Bertelsen and Kai Hoagland, which sparked a 13-2 Wibaux run in the first stanza. That run, and the sloppy play on both ends of the floor by HLP, had everyone in the Four Seasons Arena in shock as the second quarter began. However, as rusty as the T-Birds were early, it didn’t take long for them to dust themselves off and soar back into the game. HLP reeled off a 19-2 run to start the second quarter as Lance Brockie found easy buckets inside and A.J. Long Soldier connected on three of his four 3- pointers during the stretch. By the time the dust settled on the second period, HLP was back on top 33-32, but by no means out of the woods yet. As for how the T-Birds turned their play around so quickly, Brockie, a senior and four-year starter for HLP summed it up best when asked about the reversal of fortune in the second period. “Our defense,” he said emphatically. “We weren’t getting out and contesting their shots at all in the first quarter, and once we made an effort to play harder on defense, that got everything else going for us. That, and we stopped turning the ball over.” If sloppy described Hays’ first-half play, near-perfect would sum up the Tbirds’ final 16 minutes. HLP came out smoking-hot in the third stanza as Long Soldier and Cole McCabe connected on multiple outside shots. And the T-Birds’ defense started to turn the Longhorns over which led to easy layups as HLP’s patented transition game really got going. By the time the horn sounded on the third stanza, HLP had ripped off another 20-2 run, and over the span of the second and third quarter’s, the T-Birds outscored Wibaux, 42-8 to lead 56-38 with just eight minutes left in the game. “I thought in the first half we did everything we wanted to do against them,” Wibaux head coach Trevor Houck said. “We took away their fastbreak and we made shots when we were open. “But they are so talented and it’s tough to keep up with them if you don’t continue to make shots,” he added. “And in the second half, we still got good looks, but we just couldn’t knock down the shots.” Long Soldier, who was a catalyst in HLP’s third-place finish at state last season, led all scorers with 27 points, including four treys. All of his points came in just three quarters of play. Brockie also had a monster outing for the T-Birds, scoring 18 points, pulling down 15 rebounds and blocking four shots. McCabe and Lenny Gray added 13 and 12 points, respectively. By games end, HLP held a huge rebounding edge and the advantage in the turnover margin. “It was good to play well after the bad start,” Brockie said. “Now, hopefully we can just continue to play better.” The loss to HLP was only Wibaux’s fourth of the season. The Longhorns got 19 points from Bertelsen and 17 from Jeff Bakken. Wibaux will now face either Gardiner or Highwood tonight at 5 in a loser-out contest. Meanwhile the T-Birds are back in the Class C semifinals for the first time since they captured the state championship in 2002. HLP (23-2) will square off against Froid-Medicine Lake tonight at 6:30 in the first semifinal with the winner meeting either Big Sandy or Shields Valley for the state championship on Saturday night. The Redhawks beat Gardiner on Thursday for the right to face the vaunted Tbirds. “I thought when we picked up our defense and quit turning the ball over, we played pretty well against a really good team,” Ereaux said. “And I feel like now we have the rust off of us and we match up pretty well with the teams that are left. So I am really happy with our team and the way they played today.”
