HELENA -- The Helena Capital girls basketball team roared back in an astounding fashion to down crosstown rival Helena High in overtime 39-34 on Jan. 23. The Bruins never led during the 32 minutes of regulation play and never looked back during the four-minute overtime period against the Bengals.
"I thought we could have been a lot better offensively," Bruins head coach Katie Garcin-Forba said after the game.
Now, five days removed from the contest with plenty of time to review the film, Garcin-Forba said it's not that they needed to be better on offense, they just needed one or two shots to fall early.
"Looking back at the first quarter, we had eight possessions out of our first 11 or 12 that we got good shots, they just didn't fall. We knock one or two of those down, that feels differently going into that second quarter and getting a little bit more momentum going," said Garcin-Forba. "So for us, it's just getting into that earlier in the game, especially in a crosstown-type matchup where there's a lot of emotions that go with that."
The Bengals, on the other hand, had the Bruins right where they wanted them in that game. They led in the fourth quarter by as many as 10 points but saw it disintegrate down the stretch, which head coach Eric Peterson chalked up to a lack of experience.
"Being in the moment and feeling what that felt like and having those butterflies, when we should have been confident. In that regard, I felt like we weren't as confident as we have been in the past," said Peterson. "It's being in that situation. That's the first time this year where we've been in a markedly close game, where we had a lead and they cut into the lead in the fourth quarter and started having those butterflies."
Both Helena High and Helena Capital will have a few more days of preparation before they make the trip to Kalispell to wrap up their first go-around in the Western AA. The Bengals take on the Flathead Braves and the Bruins taking on the Glacier Wolfpack on Jan. 30, before the schools exchange opponents on the final day of January.
