HELENA — On a Tuesday night when Helena High honored six of its senior boys basketball players and one team manager — Cayton Delsigne, Kyler Larson, Carter Kraft, Sam Ark, Manu Melo and Ben Swift — the Bengals earned a 47-39 home victory over Missoula Big Sky.
The visiting Eagles came out firing early and often as they jumped out to a quick 12-0 lead midway through the first quarter. After a timeout, Helena clapped back with a small run of its own to close out the opening quarter trailing 17-9.
It was the same story in the second quarter for the Eagles as they stole momentum back from the Bengals and kept their foot on the gas until the end of the half where they would go into the break up by double digits, 30-17.
Calijah LaRance scored 11 first-half points for the Eagles while Michael Simonovich added seven.
The second half, though, was a different story. Early in the third, the Bengals started to chip away at their deficit using both defense and offense.
Helena outscored the Eagles 17-6 in the third to go into the final quarter down a bucket, 36-34. The Bengals took over in the fourth again, outpacing Big Sky 13-3 to eventually pull away. Helena's Jaxan Lieberg took a couple charges in the second half which seemed to change the momentum.
The Bengals' Tevin Wetzel and Dylan Mosness combined for 12 points in the fourth quarter. Overall, the Bengals outscored the Eagles 30-9 after halftime. Wetzel finished with a game-high 17 points while LaRance led the Eagles with 13.
