Class A State Tournament Preview

Polson plays Butte Central today in the opening round of the Class A Montana State Tournament. What better way to get ready than reading a preview by the Daily Inter Lake's Dillon Tabish (Great writer, in my humble opinion).

(Via The Daily Interlake)

BOZEMAN - The road to the Class A state championship ends in Bozeman this season, and that's where the Wildcats and Pirates find themselves.

Starting today on the hardwood at Montana St. University, the boys from Columbia Falls and Polson will try to restore Northwestern A's dominance in the landscape of boys basketball.

Over the last 13 years, Northwestern A has had a team play in the Saturday night finale eight times. Five of those resulted in local championships - three for Columbia Falls (2003, 2005, 2006), one for Polson (1998) and one for Libby (2004).

Both Columbia Falls and Polson have taken turns playing in the title game the last two years, but both groups came up just short.

With a talented core of experienced players back for both programs, the pride of Northwestern A is definitely twofold this year.

And Saturday night is only two games away.

"Tournament time is kind of what you put all the hard work in for," Columbia Falls head coach Cary Finberg said. "It's the reason you have all the open gyms and offseason workouts. This is what you're pointing to. It's a great time of year."

The Wildcats (19-1) kick off tournament action today at 12:30 p.m. against Belgrade (14-9). Polson (14-6) faces Butte Central (15-5) at 6:30 p.m.

"Hopefully the kids will thrive in that situation," Finberg said of the state tournament."They just need to come out and make sure bottom line, it's still basketball. It's just at a higher level with more at stake."

Today's tournament bracket has several familiar teams filled in - defending state champ Laurel is back with a talented squad along with Dillon, the 2009 champ and the team with the second best overall record this year behind Columbia Falls.

Today, Laurel (17-3) plays Corvallis (16-5) at 2 p.m. and Dillon (18-2) takes on Billings Central (8-13) at 8 p.m. Winners move on to semifinal action on Friday while losers will fight to stay alive in loser-out action.

"Everybody is good at state. It's important to cherish each possession, that's one thing we learned last year," Polson head coach Brad Pluff said.

"Hopefully we won't be quite as wide-eyed as we were last year. Nothing is going to catch us off guard."

Behind the strong play of now-senior Louis Mohr, who returned to the team late in the season, the Pirates snuck up on everyone at state last year in Butte, taking down Billings Central and Butte Central before falling to Laurel in the title game. It was the first state tourney appearance for Polson since 2006.

"It was important for us to get there last year ... . Obviously it wasn't a shock to us, but I think everyone really didn't see how talented our team really was," Pluff said.

Columbia Falls, on the other hand, has not had the luxury of anonymity in recent years. Over his 15 years as head coach, Finberg has established the Wildcats as one of the most successful programs in the state.

Last year's team, heavily favored like this year's group is, lost in the opening round in overtime to Laurel and settled for third place.

"I look at the Laurel game last year, obviously it was disappointing. It was real similar to the Polson game (last Saturday in the divisional championship). It came down to a possession here and a possession there," Finberg said. "(Laurel) made one more play than we did last year. At state-level basketball, when two good teams are playing like that, it can go either way. Sometimes it takes a roll of the ball or a bounce to go your way. It went Laurel's way last year. But I was still proud of my guys."

This year's Wildcat team follows the same blueprint as successful ones in the past - well rounded team play, stingy defense and all-in role players.

Senior Nick Emerson leads the squad offensively and is one of three players to have been a contributing member of the 2009 team that nearly captured a state title. Senior Kaleb Johnson and junior Austin Barth are the other two.

Fresh off the program's third divisional title in a row and with only one defeat on the season, against Polson no less, Columbia Falls is living that clichéd dream of playing the best basketball at the end, when it's most important.