Lady Bulldogs start strong in tourney

Whitefish girls go 1-1, starting guard Chelsea Ray out indefinitely due to knee injury

By DAVID ERICKSON

Whitefish Pilot

The Whitefish High School girls basketball team got off to a fast start on Friday, lighting up their home court for almost 70 points in their season opener at the Northwest-Southwest Class A Tip-Off Tournament. (Actually it was 69 points, but who's counting?)

Kate Klundt tormented the Lady Jackets of Stevensville for 21 points along with a stingy full-court defense and a ton of rebounds. Desiree Clarke scored 12 points, and Dana Labuda had 11.

"The team chemistry is the best since I've been playing," Labuda said. "We're really developing as a team."

Future Lady Griz Ashley Ferda only had seven points, but the score didn't indicate her impact on the game. She was the main distributor of the ball, dishing to the open shooter on every opportunity. Her role this year will be less of a scoring-machine than an assist-machine.

The only low point for the Lady Bulldogs came four minutes into the game when starting point guard Chelsea Ray went down with a knee injury.

"I dislocated my kneecap, it was really painful," she said.

Ray said she will miss at least a month while she rehabilitates.

"The tournament was good for the kids. It went really well," said head coach Tim Olson. "It was good for our younger kids to get on the court and get some cohesiveness. That's really what it was all about."

Olson said on Friday that when his squad was an offensive juggernaut against the Stevensville Lady Jackets.

"We were playing the style that we want to play for the rest of the season," he said. "We put a lot of points on the board Friday night, and we did some great things."

Olson said he was impressed with Klundt's performance.

"Kate rebounds as good as anybody, she's just someone who wants the ball worse than anyone on the floor," he said. "She got up and down the court."

Whitefish 18 22 9 20 - 69

Stevi 9 7 10 18 - 44

Whitefish - Jessie Slaybaugh 4, Torie Powell 6, Kate Klundt 21, Ashley Ferda 7, Desiree Clarke 13, Dana Labuda 11, McCara Cullen 4, Amanda Drasby 4.

Bulldogs vs. Anaconda

The Whitefish Lady Bulldogs started out hot against the Anaconda Lady Copperheads on Saturday at the Columbia Falls gym, but they got cold at the end and lost the game, 42-62. Whitefish had a one point lead heading into the second quarter, but Anaconda went on an 18-8 scoring streak to pull away.

"We started out fast, but we had some cold shooting towards the end of the game," Olson said. "We're going to have cold streaks here and there."

Olson said there were a few things that his girls didn't do as well on Saturday as they had in their blowout win on Friday.

"We passed the ball great on Friday, but on Saturday it wasn't there. Our rebounding wasn't good on Saturday either," he said. "It's a learning experience, and we're going to work on those things in practice. We did rebounding drills in practice on Monday."

Ashley Ferda went 9-for-12 from the free-throw line. She had 16 points in the game, while Amanda Ormsby added eight.

The Lady Bulldogs are back in action Friday afternoon at Glacier High School.

Whitefish 16 8 9 9 - 42

Anaconda 15 18 15 14 - 62

Whitefish (1-1) - Torie Powell 2, Kate Klundt 4, Ashley Ferda 16, Heather Melcer 4, Desiree Clarke 6, Dana Labuda 2, Amanda Ormsby 8.