GLASGOW — Scobey and Fairview are set to meet in Saturday night’s Eastern C boys basketball divisional championship game in Glasgow after picking up victories in Friday’s semifinal round. Scobey blasted Dodson, going up by 40 early in the third quarter to trigger a running clock. Fairview had to scratch and claw against Froid-Medicine Lake in the evening’s second semifinal. The Warriors trailed early but pulled away in the second half.
Scobey 79, Dodson 31
Scobey hit eight first-half 3-pointers en route to a 53-17 advantage at the break and never looked back. The Spartans rolled past Dodson on Friday night, 79-31, to advance to the Eastern C boys divisional championship game.
Scobey scored on its opening possession when Austyn Fishell hit his first of four 3-pointers, and the rout was on. Scobey’s lead ballooned to 26-9 by the end of the first quarter. Fishell shot the lights out for Scobey, hitting four triples and scoring 17 points. Parker Cromwell hit five 3s and scored 19 and Caden Handran stuffed the stat sheet with 10 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
“It’s a lot of fun. Once you’re making your shots, you give your team a lot of energy and everyone feeds off of it,” Fishell said.
All 12 Scobey players that got in the game scored. The Spartans shot just north of 63 percent from the field and hit 11 of 22 from downtown, while holding Dodson to just 34.5 percent shooting.
“Everything looks good when you’re making 3s,” Scobey head coach Jason Wolfe said. “We haven’t shot the ball really well this year, so that was a good game for us. We’ve had games where we’ve struggled from the 3-point line, but (Friday) it just felt like the kids were shooting with a lot of confidence.”
Dodson, which beat Richey-Lambert in the first round, will face Westby-Grenora in loser-out action Saturday morning. Dodson’s win over Richey-Lambert on Thursday was the first win at the divisional tournament for the Coyotes since 1966, according to Dodson head coach Frank Benson.
Scobey will face Fairview in the Eastern C boys title game on Saturday night.
Fairview 62, Froid-Medicine Lake 53
Fairview trailed early but pulled away from Froid-Medicine Lake early in the fourth quarter for a 62-53 win to advance to Saturday night’s Eastern C title game against Scobey.
Froid-Medicine Lake took the lead early in the contest and led 14-11 after the first quarter. But from that point on, the Fairview defense put the clamps on the Redhawks. Fairview outscored Froid-Medicine Lake 16-9 in the second quarter to take a 27-23 lead into halftime.
The Warriors extended their lead in the third quarter to eight, but Froid-Medicine Lake was able to close within 42-35 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Fairview kept the pressure on, forcing turnovers and rushed shots on its way to a dominant fourth-quarter performance.
“Just as a team, defensive-wise, we executed pretty well, especially in the second, third and fourth quarters,” Fairview head coach Luke Kloker said. “We switched it up a little bit to try to get some momentum and it worked.”
Josh Herron led Fairview with 24 points and eight rebounds, both game-highs. Herrron was 11 for 15 from the field. Alex Schriver and Cody Asbeck added 13 and 12, respectively. Javonne Nesbit led the Redhawks with 20 points and racked up six steals.
Fairview and Scobey are set to tip at 7 p.m. on Saturday. Froid-Medicine Lake will move to Saturday morning’s loser-out action against Culbertson.
