Kellogg JV hands Lady Cats 10th straight defeat
Freshman Lily Reuter (right) drives toward the hoop while Priest River's Samantha Pound defends her during a game on Tuesday at PRLHS.
(File photo by DYLAN GREENE)
KELLOGG — Clark Fork girls basketball wrapped up its regular season on Friday night with a 35-27 defeat to the Kellogg JV team.
The Lady Cats have now lost 10 straight games.
Clark Fork came out strong, but then the Wildcats inserted some of their players that float from JV to varsity. Their experience allowed Kellogg to gain a stranglehold on the game, head coach Jordan Adams said.
"It's good for us truly," Adams said about the tough competition. "As a team, we're getting better and better all the time on offense and defense, so while it sucks to play harder teams, it's starting to benefit us and I hope it pays off when we go to districts."
The Lady Cats jumped on the Wildcats early and took a 9-7 first quarter lead. Then in the second quarter, Kellogg held Clark Fork scoreless for over five minutes and went on a 10-0 to take a 19-15 advantage into halftime.
The Lady Cats hit another dry spell to start the second half and went nearly the entire third quarter without scoring. With about 26 seconds left in the third, Paige Valliere hit a shot to end the scoring drought. Then Eloise Shelton hit a driving layup just before the third-quarter buzzer sounded to cut Kellogg's advantage to 27-19.
Adams said her team needed to attack the basket more during those stretches of struggles offensively.
"We have a habit of just swinging the ball around the perimeter because we do have some pretty decent 3-pointer shooters," she said, "but we have really been on the girls ... like you have to either feed the ball inside or start driving just to break that defense up."
In the fourth quarter, Clark Fork was unable to mount a comeback and the Wildcats secured the victory.
Valliere scored a team-high 11 points and grabbed three steals.
"Paige just came out shooting the ball like crazy and I loved every minute of it," Adams said about Valliere's performance.
Katelyn Matteson recorded a double-double for the Lady Cats with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Adams said Matteson was aggressive all night on the boards.
"Katelyn's always been a pretty good rebounder," she said, "but when that girl boxes out, she is unstoppable."
Lily Reuter tallied four points and three rebounds and Grace Yancey added seven rebounds.
Now the Lady Cats (2-13) will prepare for a 1A Division II District 1 championship showdown at No. 1 seed Mullan at 6 p.m. Wednesday. The winner will advance to the state tournament. Emily Myers didn't play against the Wildcats due to an injury, but Adams is hopeful that some rest will give her a chance to play in the district championship.
In both regular season matchups, Clark Fork lost to Mullan by seven points. If the Lady Cats bring the intensity they had in the first quarter on Friday, Adams said her team can knock off the Tigers and get back to state for the first time since 2012.
"I have all the confidence in the world in them," she said.
Clark Fork 9 6 4 8 — 27
Kellogg JV 7 12 8 8 — 35
CLARK FORK — Matteson 10, Valliere 11, Shelton 2, Reuter 4, Yancey 0, Mace 0, Fournier 0.
KELLOGG JV — Izzy 0, Zoe 3, Dani 9, Ky 0, Alex 6, Emma 4, Brooks 0, Brooke 0, Averey 2, Maddie 7, Haylee 4.