Butte High Boys ground Big Sky in overtime

Butte High's Rueso Batterman caught a pass from Hudson Luedtke with under five seconds to play, and as had been his specialty all evening, he found a man open under the bucket.  That man was Dylan "Bobby" Bache whose layup off the backboard fell through as the horn sounded and forced overtime against the Missoula Big Sky Eagles in Ross J. Richardson Memorial Gymnasium Friday evening in a Western AA boys basketball contest.  From there, it was all Butte.  The Bulldogs outscored the Eagles 9-2 in the extra stanza and came away with a 72-63 win that saw big runs by both teams throughout the game.

Hudson Luedtke would lead all scorers with 18 on the evening and was one of four Bulldogs in double figures.  Bache was right behind with 16, Braylon Larson added 11 and Tocher Lee had 10 for Butte whose unselfishness reaped big rewards.  Batterman and Demarais would find each other on both the sending and receiving sides of beautiful interior passes and they had it happening from the outside as well, hitting six three-pointers on the night with Bache and Lee doing the lion's share of damages.

The win avenges a 57-49 loss that the Bulldogs suffered in Missoula on January 19 and with the victory the Bulldogs improve to 10-6 overall with an 8-4 record in the Western AA.  Butte will close out their home schedule Thursday against Helena High and end the regular season on Saturday at Helena Capital.