FRENCHTOWN — Holding off a furious Frenchtown rally, Dillon kept its unbeaten streak intact on Saturday afternoon as the Beavers topped the Broncs 57-48 to improve to 8-0.
Frenchtown fell to 7-3 with the loss.
The game was a battle between the top two boys basketball programs in the Southwestern A. Jace Fitzgerald led Dillon with 15 points and Cole Truman added 14 for the Beavers.
A jumper from Truman gave Dillon a 45-28 lead to begin the fourth quarter, but Frenchtown rallied from there, and a pair of 3-pointers from Wyatt Hayes got the Broncs within 48-44 with three minutes left to play.
"We made some adjustments against their 1-3-1 to kind of put some pressure on their baseline guys and really just came down to guys looking to score," Frenchtown coach Brandon Robbins said. "Something we work on is guys just stepping up and being more confident and looking to score in those opportunities and Wyatt had a good game Tuesday (against Columbia Falls) where he was looking to score a little bit and he was able to hit a few more tonight and hope he continues to.
"I think we got some other guys that as they find their groove a little bit, to continue being balanced and taking a little pressure off of Brandon (Finley) and Devin (Shelton) to score as much and that’s just going to make us better."
That's as close as Frenchtown got as Dillon used free throws down the stretch to put the game away. Shelton led Frenchtown with 18 points while Hayes finished with 12, all of which came in the fourth quarter. Finley added nine.
"I thought Frenchtown did a tremendous job of knocking down some threes in a row," Dillon coach Terry Thomas said. "They had a couple open ones to kind of get started but a couple of them were pretty well guarded and then they hit them quick and in succession. But I think (we) did a nice job of not panicking and trying to control the basketball, make them foul us, go to the line and see if we can try to knock down some free throws.
"It’s a really big win especially to go on the road and play. They’ve got a great basketball team and with some real athletes who know how to play and they can defend and they can rebound and they have some real athleticism, so to come on the road here and to be able to walk away with a win is really big in our conference."
