Hamilton, Corvallis Girls Teams Lose Early Games in Divisional
Both the Hamilton Lady Broncs and the Corvallis Lady Blue Devils came up a little short in their initial games of the Western A Divisional Basketball Tournament at Hamilton High School. In the first two games of the tourney, Corvallis lost to Columbia Falls 65 to 57 and Hamilton lost to Libby in Overtime by score of 34 to 29. That puts the two teams against each other in a 9:30 a.m. game Friday, with the loser going out of the tournament.
In the Corvallis game, the Lady Blue Devils trailed at the end of the first quarter 13 to 6, at at half they were down by a score of 32 to 21. Columbia Falls kept the lead through the rest of the game, ahead at the end of three - 58 to 41 and the final Columbia Falls 65 Corvallis 57. Hamilton, meanwhile, was in a defensive battle in the first half of the game and trailed 13 to 9 at the half. They took the lead in the third quarter, heading into the final period with a 23 to 19 lead, but Libby tied the score at the end of regulation play - 27 to 27. They slipped by in the 4-minute overtime to win 34 to 29.
The Columbia Falls and Libby semi-final game will be at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The winner of the Friday Hamilton-Corvallis game will play Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. in the Hamilton Middle School gym on South 5th Street. The winner of that game will go into the Consolation match at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.