By CARL HENNELL/Daily Inter Lake

Simply put: The Flathead High School boys’ basketball team is 11 points better than Western AA’s second-place team.

The Braves proved it Saturday by beating Helena High, 75-59, in the FHS gym. The victory completed the regular-season sweep of the Bengals, who dropped to 7-3 in Western AA play. The Braves beat Helena by six points in overtime on Jan. 25, meaning they beat the Bengals by 22 points over two games.

The Braves erupted for a 10-1 lead, with Connor Cavigli scoring the game’s first six points, and never looked back. Helena got as close as six points in the third quarter (on the strength of switching to a 2-3 zone defense), but the Braves torched the zone by hitting four of five 3-pointers in the third and took a 15-point lead into the final frame.

It was the Braves’ third-straight Western AA victory and evened their conference record at 5-5 with two regular-season games left — both at home against the bottom two teams in the league standings. They improved to 13-5 overall.

Even though they are in fifth place in the league (and on the outside, looking in at hosting a playoff game), the Braves are sitting pretty for rallying to host a playoff.

“We’re knocking on the window,” Flathead coach Fred Febach said.

Coupled with Missoula Big Sky’s loss to Sentinel on Saturday, the Braves are now a game out of tying both Big Sky and Helena Capital for third place. They are two games out from tying Helena High for second place, and now hold the tie-breaker over the Bengals.

Big Sky and Capital play each other in their regular-season finales. Big Sky plays Helena two days before that — the same day Capital plays at Sentinel. Helena closes with Sentinel.

So a No. 3 seed is still a likely possibility for the Braves. That would mean they’d host the No. 6 seed (probably Missoula Hellgate) in a playoff.

The Braves host Glacier and Hellgate on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

“I’m really pleased with where we are at right now, but we have two more games left and we need to see how the chips fall,” Febach said.

Brock Osweiler had 25 points — including two 3-pointers and a slam dunk — with eight rebounds, three steals and three blocks. Connor Cavigli had 16 points, four rebounds, two steals and two assists. Jake Thiesen went 3-for-4 from 3-point range and scored 17 points with three assists. Charlie Dotson had seven points, eight rebounds and five assists. Danny Salois and Josh Harris combined for 10 points. Salois also had four assists while Harris tallied two blocks a day after getting his first slam dunk.

“We are showing a balance on offense,” Febach said. “Brock is a big part of it, but everyone else is starting to feel their roll. That’s huge.”

Flathead simply used its speed to eat up the Bengals.

The Braves’ team transition game accounted for four points in the games’ first four minutes and accounted for 10 total points. Individually, Osweiler, Cavigli, Dotson and Thiesen each made such great moves toward the basket that their defenders were left holding their jocks.

“They are a very, very dangerous team,” Helena coach Willie Schlepp said. “They forced the tempo right away. That’s not the type of game we can play with our strengths. We are a big basketball team, so we have to make it a half-court game and execute and use our big guys. But when our big guys are running the floor in transition, they are trailing guys and that gave them easy looks.”

Both teams came out in man-to-man defenses and basically stuck with them through the first half.

“He (Schlepp) put in a smaller lineup with another shooter or two, so I didn’t want to go into a zone and have them go off with 3s,” Febach said. “We stayed in man as much as we could. We were able to rebound out of it and get out into our transition. I’m really, really pleased with the kids.”

Osweiler explained: “Helena High doesn’t like to put a lot of points up on the board, so we just tried getting after them. We wanted to limit them to one shot and get the board and get the ball up the floor. We tried pushing it as fast as we can. They are used to a little slower pace, and then they played Glacier, so we just wanted to push the ball as much as we could.”

The Braves made 51 percent of their shots (25-for-49), including six of 12 3-pointers. The Bengals made 41 percent (21-for-51) of their shots. The teams basically equaled each other in rebounds, with Helena finishing with a 30-29 advantage. The Braves committed just 10 turnovers while forcing Helena into 16 — 15 of which came in the first three quarters.

Helena was paced by Steven Foster (14 points, six rebounds) and Grant Fink (10 points, six rebounds).

Helena 9 11 25 14 — 59

Flathead 16 17 27 15 — 75

HELENA (7-3, 9-9) — Nick Trapp 0-1 0-2 0, Reil Cornelius 3-5 0-0 7, Adam Johnson 1-1 0-0 2, Spencer Chamberlain 1-3 4-6 7, Grant Fink 3-13 4-4 10, Josh Stuberg 3-5 2-2 8, Tyler Hulse 3-7 2-2 9, Steven Foster 6-14 2-4 14, Brian Evans 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 21-51 14-20 59.

FLATHEAD (5-5, 13-5) — Jake Thiesen 6-9 2-3 17, Sam Tedrow 0-1 0-0 0, Danny Salois 1-4 2-2 5, Austin Roehl 0-1 0-0 0, Charlie Dotson 3-5 1-2 7, Connor Cavigli 4-8 8-9 16, Colton Hoffenbacker 0-2 0-0 0, Josh Harris 2-5 1-2 5, Brock Osweiler 9-14 5-9 25. Totals 25-49 19-27 75.

3-point goals — Hel. 3-4 (Cornelius 1-1, Chamberlain 1-1, Hulse 1-1, Fink 0-1), Flt. 6-12 (Thiesen 3-4, Osweiler 2-4, Salois 1-1, Roehl 0-1, Cavigli 0-2, Hoffenbacker 0-1). Rebounds — Hel. 30 (Fink 6, Foster 6, Stuberg 5, team 4, Chamberlain 3, Johnson 2, Hulse 2, two with 1), Flt. 29 (Osweiler 8, Dotson 8, Cavigli 4, team 4, Harris 2, three with 1). Assists — Hel. 11 (Evans 4, Cornelius 2, Chamberlain 2, three with 1), Flt. 18 (Dotson 5, Salois 4, Thiesen 3, Tedrow 2, Cavigli 2, two with 1). Steals — Hel. 7 (Hulse 2, Foster 2, three with 1), Flt. 9 (Osweiler 3, Cavigli 2, Salois 2, two with 1). Blocks — Hel. 2 (Cornelius, Johnson), Flt. 6 (Osweiler 3, Harris 2, Roehl). Turnovers — Hel. 16, Flt. 10. Total fouls — Hel. 18, Flt. 15. Fouled out — Cornelius.