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If believing in yourselves is half the battle, the Noxon Red Devil boys are well on the way to becoming all they can be.

Coach Bart Haflich and his Devils split a pair of District 14C basketball games last week, running past St. Regis 55-10 in St. Regis Friday and falling 59-49 to Charlo in Noxon Saturday.

Interestingly, Haflich feels the loss to Charlo was where his Devils gained the most mental ground.

“That game was a good confidence builder, having belief in yourself is half the battle,” Haflich said. “We may not have won that game but we came away from it thinking, ‘Yeah, maybe we can beat this team.’ And that’s what I want us to take away from it, the belief that it is possible for us to defeat teams like Charlo.”

That belief will likely be required when the 14C tournament rolls around in a few weeks as Arlee is out-of-sight undefeated and Plains has lost only to Arlee so far this season, but to no one else. In order for another team get out of the 14C tourney (only two advance to the Western C tournament), that team will have to defeat at least one of those squads and likely, another one such as Charlo, just to get the opportunity.

“We played well against Charlo, that game could have went either way,” Haflich said. “The Petticrew kid got hot from outside and Smith hit some big shots to keep them ahead. We kept closing in but they kept fighting us off.”

Tyson Petticrew led Charlo to the win with 28 points and Landers Smith added 16.

Alex Currie led a balanced Red Devil attack with 11 points, Logan Wood scored 10, Ethan Hinrichsen nine, Levi Brubaker and Rylan Weltz seven each, Owen Fisher three and Braedon Marshall two.

The Devils scored more than enough points to win in the first quarter against St. Regis, jumping out to a 15-0 lead. Noxon extended the advantage to 28-2 by halftime.

and Haflich emptied the bench for most of the game.

Wood scored 21 points to lead the Devil win, Weltz added 11, Currie eight, Marshall and Matthew Kaiser four apiece, Fisher three, Brubaker two, and Hinrichsen and Aiden Galloway one each.

Nic Day scored six points for St. Regis.

The Devils have two more District 14C games on tap this week, hosting Arlee Thursday and visiting Hot Springs Saturday.