The Hamilton Broncs and Butte Central Maroons battled to the end of the championship game on Saturday in Butte with Hamilton scoring the last and taking the 54-52 championship. Powered by Hunter Omlid’s 24 points, the Broncs had to erase a six point deficit at the half to make the comeback.
They did by playing tough defense and holding the normally high scoring Maroons to only five points in the third quarter. But Butte Central was playing tough defense too and held Hamilton’s top scorer, Tanner Goligoski scoreless in the first half. But when he broke loose, he sank a couple of treys to get things going. Butte Central came back and were at Hamilton’s heels the entire fourth quarter. Trey Searle and Goligoski each had 10 points to pad Omlid’s 24 points. Cam Rothie and Carson Rostad each had five points.
Hamilton opened against Frenchtown and ground out a 69-64 win. After being tied at the half, Hamilton took the lead midway through the third quarter and then managed the clock for the rest of the game. Omlid let the Broncs with 19 points with Goligoski adding 17. Rostad finished with 15 and Searle had 10 points. Tyler Barnes and Austin Drake each had three and Cam Rothie finished with two points.
Hamilton will have the nightcap at the Western A Divisional in Hamilton on Thursday. That game will be at 8 pm and will be against Whitefish, the No. 4 seed from the Northwest A.
Stevensville played Dillon in their opening game. Logan Roth’s 20 points just was not enough as the Yellowjackets lost, 68-42. Colby Meeds had eight points, Sean Craft had seven, Devlin Sherman had five and Ivan Yazvac added two.
Stevensville played Frenchtown in loser out action. Frenchtown topped the Yellowjackets, 59-44. Meeds had 17 points and Sherman added 16 more. Roth finished with eight and Riley Rust completed the scoring with three.
Corvallis opened their tournament play against Frenchtown. Although Frenchtown came out tough and quickly opened up a 16 point lead at the half, Corvallis came back to shut the Broncs’ scoring down and tie the game at the end of regulation play and send the game to overtime. Frenchtown went on to win, 64-58. Tanner Jessop had 21 points to lead the Blue Devils. Caleb Warnken had 13, Garrett Brown had 11, Liang Liedle had three, Caeson Jessop had six, and Cole Trexler had four points.
With the loss, Corvallis then had to play Dillon in loser out action. The Blue Devils had played their hearts out in the previous game and didn’t have a lot of stamina left. Although they stayed right with the Beavers in the first half but lost ground after the breaking went on to lose, 68-45. Warnken had 15 points to lead the Blue Devils. Caeson Jessop had 11, Tanner Jessop had eight, Garrett Brown had six, Jace Barcus had three, and Bryce Mayn had two.
Neither Stevensville nor Corvallis will move on to divisionals.