Ladies ready for tourney

By DAVID ERICKSON - Whitefish Pilot

The 2007 Whitefish Lady Bulldogs basketball season kicks off on Friday against Stevensville at 8 p.m. in the Whitefish High School gym. The game is the team's opener for the Class A Northwest-Southwest Tip-Off Tournament to start the season.

Second-year head coach Tim Olson says his squad is going to be an exciting one to watch this season.

"Our style of basketball is going to be a fun style," he said. "We want to push the ball up and down the floor."

Olson said he will basically utilize a full-court press style on defense to create turnovers and get pressure.

"With our team speed this year, we really want to get after the ball and win possession battles all over the court," he said.

Olson said his girls are more comfortable in the system he put in place last year. Last year was an adjustment year, and now everyone is able to focus more on execution rather than learning the nuances of the offensive and defensive schemes.

"We basically hit the ground running on day one," he said. "We are more comfortable with each other now. Last year was a learning year."

Olson said the Whitefish girls team will have five seniors this year who, along with one junior, Kate Klundt, all have starting experience.

"We returned a great core of kids," he said. "We of course have Ashley Ferda, Chelsea Ray, Desiree Clark, Dana Labuda and Amanda Ormbsy. Kate Klundt earned a starting position as a sophomore with outstanding play in the divisional tournament last year."

Olson said that because most of his girls participated in fall sports, including volleyball, golf, soccer and cross-country, physical training has not been a problem.

"Our kids have been up and running, ready to go," he said.

At the Green vs. Gold scrimmage Thursday night in the high school gym, the girls looked like they had a little bit of rust to shake off, but seemed fairly cohesive as a group.

Passes looked crisp, shots were going in the bucket, but there were a few traveling penalties and fouls that shouldn't have happened. Those types of things are common in the early stages of any season, and overall, the squad looks impressive.

Ashley Ferda, of course, looks like she is already in mid-season form. On the court, she looks like someone who has been practicing every week, if not every day, instead of just the last couple weeks.

The Northwest A conference will be highly competitive this year, according to Olson.

"Bigfork is strong — they're probably the class of the conference. They have an All-State post player coming back," he said. "Libby is going to be very tough. Those are the two teams to beat. Overall, it is a very strong conference."

Olson said the enthusiasm level is high for his squad so far.

"These girls love basketball," he said. "If they could be in the gym seven days a week, they would be in there practicing. It's a great bunch of kids, and they love to compete. We won a lot of trophies in the fall sports. Hopefully, they can carry on that tradition in the winter."