Scotty girls fall to Selvig-less Glendive

The Glasgow girls' basketball team dodged its biggest bullet of Friday's game against Glendive before the game even started.
Glendive's 6-foot-3 star senior Carly Selvig was sitting in street clothes on the Lady Devil bench, having rolled her ankle in the previous night's 37-33 loss to Miles City. Being a team of short guards, the Scotties plan to stuff up the middle of the court got much easier with Selvig wearing jeans.
The plan to deny the lane worked well for the Scotties all game, with the girls holding all but one Glendive starters to single-digit scoring nights. Only Blair Milne, who was also 5-for-9 on free throws, scoLady 13 points in the game.
The Scotties stayed within shooting distance of Glendive for the entire first half, constantly threatening to tie or take the lead from the Lady Devils. With Glasgow trailing only 9-8 late in the first quarter, the Scotties found themselves on the losing side of a rebounding battle, letting Glendive on a 14-4 run that lasted halfway through the second quarter. But, the Scotties had a run of their own, closing out the half on an 8-3 run that closed the Lady Devil lead to 26-20.
After the break, Glasgow cut the lead to 28-25 when Glendive found its range and starting lighting up the court from deep. The Lady Devils next four buckets were 3-pointers, sparked by Glendive sophomore Devyn Asche who shot 3-for-4 from beyond the arc.
“That kind of sealed the deal,” head coach Willie Thibault said. “You're going to take some away and you're going to give some up. They just happened to start hitting.”
Trailing 40-32, the Scotties then gave up a score when the entire team was late getting out of a timeout. The Devils inbounded the ball to a 5-on-0 break and extended their lead back to double-digits.
Try as they might the Scotties were only able to muster two more points in the contest, losing to the Class A squad, 47-34.
Chloe Sukut and Shelby Fossum led the Scotties in scoring, netting eight points each. Taylor Markle finished with seven points, Tiffany Wetzel finished with five points and Rose Reyling finished with a lone 3-pointer. Jami Johnson had two points, netting her only field goal, and KayCee Markle had one point in the game.
“We did some good things,” Thibault said. “We took care of the ball much better than we have been. There were great strides there.”
The girls also made strides in their shot selection, something Thibault says has improved vastly.
“We took better shots overall,” Thibault said. “Our shots are not a quarter of an inch from going down. We're that close. I really believe when our shots start falling things are going to really start happening. We're getting great looks. We're just a hair off and we have a lot of kids with the ability to shoot the ball.”
Being a small team, the ability to shoot will be a big plus against taller teams like Wolf Point and Plentywood this weekend.
“Wolf Point's big, the thing they have is size and they have nice perimeter players, so that will be a tough matchup for us,” Thibault said. “We need to hope that none of (Wolf Point's shooters) go off, and with the girls inside, it's going to be tough.”
In addition to the games at home against Wolf Point and Plentywood on Friday and Saturday, the Scotties will play Poplar at home on Monday then travel to Sidney on Tuesday to make up the game that was snowed out two weeks ago.
With three of the four games at home it makes the stretch easier, as the last two games of the regular season are road games at Class A No. 2 Sidney and Class B No. 1 Malta. In those home games is the Scotties' Senior Night, something Thibault said gets harder every year. This year the Scotties will be honoring three seniors: Sukut, Taylor Markle and Quinn Vaira.
“I get an opportunity to work with some of the nicest girls around anywhere,” Thibault said. “We have good kids. You know you're happy to see them get closer to graduation time but you're not happy to see them not be a part of your program any more. As I get older I get more sentimental with those kind of things because we work with such great kids here.”
The Scotties start their stretch toward the playoffs on Friday at home against Wolf Point.