Beavers down Bulldogs in basketball doubleheader

The Dillon Beavers rolled into the Butte Civic Center with new head coaches for both their boys' and girls' basketball teams and rolled out of town with a pair of hard-fought victories Tuesday evening over the Butte High Bulldogs.

While the Dillon squad was under the new direction of head coach Josh Keller, they were without the services of leading scorer Kylie Konen and her 15 points per game.  And it looked like that would be a factor early as the Bulldogs would jump out to a 17-14 lead at the end of the first quarter behind the sharpshooting of freshman guard Cadence Graham.  The Beavers would take it into the paint in the second quarter, outscoring the Bulldogs by 9 in the stanza with junior forward Kenleigh Graham and senior Halle Fitzgerald, who recently signed with Carroll College, doing a lion's share of the damage.  The Beavers would maintain the lead throughout the second half and hand the Bulldogs their first loss of the young season, 71-54.  Brityn Stewart of the Bulldogs would lead all scorers with 22, Kenleigh Graham would score 20 for the Beavers while Fitzgerald had 17 and senior Sydney Petersen would finish with 18.

On the boys' side, the Beavers would start out hot, jumping out to a quick 9-2 lead before Dylan "Bobby" Bache got going.  The popular 6'1 junior would head a jumper, sparking a 7-0 Bulldog run to tie the game at 9.  In the second, Bache would add a dozen more, only being outdone by Dillon's 6'4 junior forward Carter Curnow whose strong inside play would give the Beavers a 29-21 halftime lead.  The second half would see Tocher Lee and Ruesso Batterman finding their mark for Butte High who would get their first lead of the game, 39-38 with 2:20 to go in the 3rd.  But Dillon brought along a sharpshooter of their own with Kyler Engellant who would hit nail a trey at the 5:00 mark of the 4th, giving the Beavers a 50-48 lead which they would not relinquish.  Curnow would lead all scorers with 23 while Engellant would add 14 for the Beavers.  Bache had 18 for Butte High and Lee would finish with 15.

Butte High will be in action this Friday evening at the Butte Civic Center as they take on the Butte Central Maroons.  The girls game will start at 6pm with the boys' game scheduled for 7:30.