30 Years Ago

Thursday, November 15, 1990

Lady Hawks take second at district tournament

The elite 1990 Broadus Lady Hawks won second place at the District 3-B Girls’ Basketball Tournament in Billings last weekend. They will now be one of four 3-B teams to take on the four 4-B squads in Divisional Tournament action, at Skyview High School in Billings, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The top three teams there will advance to the Montana State Class B Tournament, which will get underway in Butte during the last weekend in November.

Jerry Coulter’s Lady Hawks were completely dominating in the first two district tourney games, as they rolled over Huntley Project 43 to 18 and Forsyth, 64 to 43. Then, in the championship contest, the injury-plagued Lady Hawks went up against the undefeated Lady Spartans from Baker and lost after a hard-fought four quarters of action, 53 to 43. Baker is the only team to beat the Lady Hawks this year – Baker has claimed victory in their three contests thus far. But, the two teams could play twice more, at Divisional and at State.

The Lady Hawks’ defense completely dominated Huntley Project in game one at districts.

“We had 18 steals and dominated the game, giving up only one basket in the entire first half of the contest to the Red Devils,” said Coulter. “We played very good defense. Our offense was sluggish, though, as we missed a lot of easy opportunities.”

Lauri Morella led the Lady Hawks scoring attack with 12 points while Holly Samuelson struck for nine and Wendy Badgett for seven. Vickie Robinson and Ila Gaskill finished with four points each, Lori Ann McGill contributed with three and Rhonda Raschkow and Lyssa Thaden added two each.

Badgett led the team in rebounds with eight and in assists with nine. Raschkow had a fine evening and finished with seven rebounds while Robinson pulled down five. Gaskill had three boards on the game, Samuelson, Tami Archer and McGill had two each, and Morella, Thaden and Andrea Borla all finished with one.

Morella led in steals with four while Thaden and Badgett followed with three each. Raschkow, Robinson and Samuelson finished with two steals each and Archer and Gaskill both had one.

Friday, the girls moved into championship contention with the strong victory over Forsyth.

After a 16 to four run in the opening six minutes, the Lady Hawks led by nine points, 20 to 11 in the first quarter. By the half the game was well in hand for the Lady Hawks, as they led by 14, 36-21. Broadus finished the third quarter ahead by 20, 51 to 31, and cruised in the fourth to the solid 21 point win.

The Badgett-Morella duo combined for 41 of the Hawks 64 points. Badgett led the team with 21 while Morella struck for 20. Samuelson followed with eight points and Gaskill contributed with six. Raschkow and Anna Vernon each had two point efforts and Borla finished with one.

Gaskill led the team off the boards with 12 for an impressive performance. Badgett came down with eight rebounds and Morella with seven. Raschkow finished with five boards, Archer with three, Robinson and Thaden with two each and Samuelson, Vernon and McGill, with one each.

Badgett also had nine of the Lady Hawks 21 steals for an outstanding effort on both offense and defense. Raschkow and Morella had three take-aways each, Samuelson and McGill each had two, and Thaden, Gaskill and Robinson all had one.

Badgett and Morella both finished with three assists. Thaden finished with two and McGill, one.

Broadus had high hopes of unseating Baker in the championship contest, and led 11 to nine and 23 to 21 after the first two quarters of play. The Lady Spartans rallied back in the third quarter to take command of the game with a 40 to 33 point lead. The Lady Spartans then outscored Broadus 13 to 10 in the final quarter to take the championship trophy.

“We led the first half only to see them get fired up and out-rebound us in the second half. We played pretty well – but we can play better. We had some let-downs on offense, defense and in rebounding the second half, and they take advantage real fast,” said Coulter of the action. “We shot the ball from the outside during the first half, the best we had in the entire tournament.”

“They only out-rebounded us by three, and the turnovers were about even,” Coulter added. “They play six kids, all pretty evenly balanced.”

Badgett paced the Broadus scoring attack with 17. Gaskill, Raschkow and Thaden all had five point efforts, McGill finished with four, Morella with three and Samuelson with two.

The Lady Hawks finished with 26 rebounds and 16 steals.

Raschkow led off the boards with seven rebounds, Badgett finished with five and Morella with four. McGill, and Gaskill each had three rebounds, Archer came down with two and Thaden and Samuelson with one each.

Badgett again led in steals with six. Gaskill followed with three, Thaden and Raschkow had two each, and Morella, Samuelson and Archer all finished with one.

The Lady Hawks will open their portion of the Divisional Tournament tonight with an 8 p.m. contest against Columbus. The winner will advance to play the winner of the Boulder, Lodge Grass game at 8 p.m. Friday, while the losers face off in elimination action at 3:30 Friday.