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Respect earned, respect deserved.

The Thompson Falls Lady Hawks, after first making an appearance at No. 10 the previous week, were ranked No. 8 among all State B girls teams in the latest power poll released earlier this week.

Don’t expect coach Chadd Laws and his powerful Lady Hawks, who improved to 3-1 in conference and 4-1 overall with wins over Bigfork and Wallace last week, to be satisfied at being No. 8.

“We want to keep playing hard and having fun and the rest will take care of itself,” Laws said. “We attacked well and stayed after it against Bigfork, and the girls really had fun in the game with Wallace, that was a good one for the whole team.”

For the record, the Hawks defeated the Bigfork Vals 67-51 in Bigfork Thursday and returned home to defeat Wallace 75-35 at TFHS Saturday. The game with Wallace was a late addition, taking the place of Deer Lodge, which was forced to cancel.

The win at Bigfork was the really significant one as it was a District 7B conference-counting encounter.

The Hawks methodically pulled away from the Vals in the middle two quarters, building a lead of 54-39 heading into the fourth period, and held on for the win.

Ellie Baxter scored 17 points to lead the Hawks, big sister Megan Baxter added 16, Faith Frields 12, Jody Detlaff 10, Elli Pardee seven, Caity Alexander four and Riley Wilson one.

Emma Berreth led Bigfork with 17 points and Madison Chappius and Alexis Saari added nine apiece.

The Hawks were never threatened in the game against Wallace, rushing out to a 24-6 lead after the first quarter. Laws went freely to his bench the whole game through as a result.

“We played very well against Wallace, and everyone contributed,” he said. “We were very thankful for them coming over at such short notice, too.”

Megan Baxter took top scoring honors for the Hawks with 20 points, Ellie Baxter scored 16, Frields and Detlaff 10 each, Pardee eight, Wilson four, Chesney Lowe three, Danni VanHuss two and Cheyla Irvine and Alexander one apiece.

The Lady Hawks have two games on tap this week, hosting Stillwater Christian Tuesday (results were not available) and visiting Mission Thursday.