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LIBBY – The basketball fun is not over yet for the Lady Hawks.

Putting an exclamation point on a season chock full of feel-good wins, the Thompson Falls Lady Hawks swept to the District 7B tournament championship last week, defeating rival Eureka 39-28 in the title game in Libby Saturday night.

And the feel-good season is not over yet as coach Chadd Laws and his determined Lady Hawks now set their sights on an even bigger prize at the Western B divisional tournament in Hamilton. As the No. 1 seed from 7B, the Hawks, now 16-4, will take on Deer Lodge, the No. 4 team from District 6B at 6:30 Thursday in the first round of the combined boys and girls Western B.

The top two teams from Hamilton then move on the State B tournament in Butte March 12-14. Laws and the energized Lady Hawks obviously would most certainly like to be one of those two teams.

"We are excited and want to keep playing as long as we can," Laws said. "We are focused on Deer Lodge and preparing for them right now. We will play hard and see what that gets us."

If the Lady Hawks get past Deer Lodge, Laws and company will then take on the winner of Thursday's Anaconda-Bigfork game at 8 p.m. Friday in the Western B semifinal round.

Last week's run to the 7B tourney championship, Thompson Falls' first girls conference tournament title since 2009, was a memorable one.

Although the Hawks had difficulty gaining true separation from the feisty, hot-shooting Mission Bulldogs Thursday in Thompson Falls, they did finally fight off the persistent Lady Dogs in the end, winning the 7B semifinal 63-51.

Jody Detlaff and Ellie Baxter scored 18 and 17 points each to lead the Hawks to the win, Megan Baxter scored eight, Belle Cooper and Faith Frields seven each, Ellie Pardee five and Riley Wilson one.

Megan Baxter and Detlaff cleared 14 rebounds apiece and Baxter added an amazing seven blocked shots, while Ellie Baxter, Cooper and Detlaff had two each.

Azia Humphrey threw in 21 points to lead Mission, which went on to lose to Bigfork in the 7B consolation game Saturday, Kooper Page added nine and Mady Curie seven.

Saturday's championship game with a very good Eureka team, which had defeated the Hawks in both regular season meetings, was only the latest exciting chapter written in the Lady Hawks' 2019-2020 dream-season book.

Although the Hawks built a small lead early and led most of the way, coach Ryan Holder's Lady Lions refused to go away, and drew to within one point at 24-23 when Maggie Graves hit the second of two free throws near the end of the third period.

The Hawks took absolute control of the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter with Megan Baxter leading the charge. Baxter scored the first two two-point baskets of the fourth period off nice assists from her teammates to put the Hawks up 28-23.

After Eureka's Jadyn Pluid popped in a 3-pointer from the deep left corner, Frields promptly answered with a dagger 3-pointer of her own from the right wing for the Lady Hawks on their next trip down the floor, pushing the lead back up to five points.

Laws had prophetically told Frields she would make that shot. "I don't know why but I grabbed Faith at the end of the third quarter and told her; 'Your next three is going in, Faith,'" he said. "I'm not sure why I said it right then, but that was pretty cool when it happened."

With the large contingent of Hawk fans in Libby now hanging on every play, the Falls girls methodically put the game away from that point on.

First Megan Baxter buried a pair of free throws, then after Laws switched the Hawks into a man-to-man defense after going zone most of the game, actually most of the season, the Hawks finally pulled away.

"We haven't shown our man-to-man much," Laws said, "but that seemed like a good time to do it and it worked out well."

Indeed, it was game over from that point on. First Cooper assisted Pardee for a nice basket to make 35-26 Hawks, and then Megan Baxter emphatically blocked a shot attempt by Eureka's Graves on the other end of the floor, which led to a strong drive and dagger 2-pointer from Detlaff to make the score 37-26 with only a little over two minutes left in the game.

As the Falls faithful roared their approval, the Hawks closed out the win and started an impromptu championship celebration with their fans joining in on the fun.

Megan Baxter finished the 7B title game with 14 points, nine rebounds and another amazing total of eight blocked shots, Pardee added seven points, Detlaff six, Wilson five, Frields three, Cooper and Elli Baxter two apiece. Detlaff also speared nine rebounds and she, Ellie Baxter, Cooper and Frields passed out two assists apiece.

Graves counted eight points to lead Eureka and Pluid and Karlee Frost added six apiece.

Marking the day well, the Hawks doubled down on their regular season title on 2-22-2020, a day that will now live on in Lady Hawk lore as the day the Thompson Falls girls won their second district tournament title in school history.

John Hamilton

ELLIE FOR TWO - Ellie Baxter scores against Mission at TFHS Friday. Hawks won the 7B semifinal 63-51.

This week's Western B tourney provides the Lady Hawks another opportunity to boldly go where no one thought they could go as recently as early this season when the Hawks were an unknown quantity with a new head coach on the bench.

In his first year at the helm, Laws has turned the Lady Hawks all the way around into one of the best teams going in the division. The Lady Hawks' win over Mission Friday represented the 200th coaching win of his career, although the 201st victory Saturday in the 7B title game was undoubtedly just as sweet.

"This is a special group of girls and the support we have received from the community has just been outstanding," he said. "The kids are buying in and continue playing hard. We look forward to going to Hamilton and seeing how we can do there."