Numbers up on BHS girls teams

The Bigfork High School girls basketball program didn't have enough girls tryout to require the coaches to make cuts last week, but they did have plenty of girls to fill three teams for this season.

Seniors Kailey Fierro and Lila Cenis will provide leadership to the team as returners on the varsity. Senior Danielle Morris, who transferred to Bigfork from Corvallis at the start of the school year, is also expected to bring solid experience to the team. Juniors Mallery Knoll, Caitlin Charlebois and Quinci Paine are all back on varsity this season, as well as sophomore Taylor Peck. Melissa VanDerveer, a sophomore, has also earned a spot on the varsity squad.

"This is all subject to change as they compete for spots," said Mark Hansen, Bigfork High School head girls basketball coach.

Last year the girls were so short on numbers that the coaches had to carefully count the number of quarters each girl had played to ensure there were no violations and that each girl was being used for as much playing time as possible.

"It's a positive," Hansen said of having 27 girls this season. "We won't have to run girls between the junior varsity and froshmore team so much this year and we won't be worrying about subs so much. It's good too because it creates some competition between the girls to work for their spot. We have some girls that are also practicing down to help the freshmen have enough players, but they've always done that."

Hansen is focusing on getting his team ready for their first competition. The Valkyries will take part in the Blue and White Scrimmage tonight, Dec. 3, and will play in the Tipoff Tournament in Polson and Ronan Dec. 11-12. They will host their first game at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 17, against Eureka.

"Right now we're just scrambling to try to get everything in," Hansen said. "We're implementing a new offense and working on our half-court defense. We had a couple of good practices over the long weekend. They seem excited to learn."

Junior Varsity

Having more girls in the program will especially benefit the JV, which often got caught in the middle last year and shorted on players.

"We have more people to work with this year so that's good because we won't have to swing the girls as much between varsity, JV and froshmore," said Mandy Williams, BHS JV coach. "It will be nice because these girls will be predominately JV so they will practice together and work on things together rather than being pulled back and forth to the other teams. The girls will get to become more familiar with playing together and have more consistent teammates."

The JV Vals will also find consistency with Williams, who is coaching the JV for her second year in a row having previously coached the freshman team for one season.

"I'm looking forward to coaching them again this season," Williams said. "They are a really good group of girls and they've been working hard."

Most of the girls on this year's JV team were on the froshmore team last year and also played some JV, and a couple got some time in on varsity as well. Returning to the program this year on the JV team are sophomores McKinze Shults, Amber McDaniel, Heather Lehrman, Kristen Woll and Miranda Miller and senior Holly MacFarlane. Juniors Taylor McElroy and Jessica Killian have returned to the program after taking last year off and senior Danae McCarthy is back for the first time since her freshman year. Junior Kirsten Campbell is new to the program this year having transferred to BHS from Seeley-Swan High School.

"It's nice to see all these girls come back out," Williams said. "It really helps build the program, especially with so many of them being underclassmen. It's good because a lot of the girls have experience and we haven't changed too much in the program this year so we're not teaching them very much from scratch."

The JV will participate in the Blue and White Scrimmage before hosting their first game Dec. 17 against Eureka.

Froshmore

Most of the girls on the froshmore team bring experience with them to their first season on a high school team, but they still have a lot to learn.

"We're going to have to have the fundamentals down," said Jim Epperly, BHS froshmore coach. "We are really working hard on that. We are doing a lot of the same things as the JV and varsity are doing, but at a slower pace."

The freshmen girls are Emily Stephens, Kenna Hauns, Makenna Gembala, Marriah Bradstreet, Annie Peterson, Alexandra Dillon, Chelsea Olson and Shelby Scoggins.

They will also be joined by junior Sierra Fischer, who is playing basketball for the first time, and a mix of other girls will play down to help them out.

"They are a fun, happy group and they are working really hard," Epperly said. "Even though we've been having them practice at 6 a.m., but that goes along with being a freshman."

This year's froshmore team may have to struggle through more early practices, and some late night ones as well, since there will be more definition among the teams than last year, but they will benefit from it as well.

"It's a luxury having enough girls for three teams," Epperly said. "We can take the time to teach the younger girls all the basics they need. Everyone should have the opportunity to have things slowed down and to the learn the right way to do everything."

Epperly said that most of the girls on the froshmore team played in middle school, but their commitment level to the sport varies.

"We have a couple of girls that are serious ball players, but for most of them they're just trying it out and seeing if they like it," Epperly said. "Basketball is a really time consuming sport, so they need to decide if they want to be dedicated to it. That's part of being a freshman, though. They will have to put in the time in the off season if they decide they want to stick with it."

Epperly said he sees good potential in the girls on his team.

"We're pretty quick, but we're not a tall team," he said. "We're pretty mobile, but we'll see if we can score. They seem to be moving well on defense."

Epperly will get to see how his froshmore team measures up Monday when they host Stillwater at 5:30 p.m. in their first game of the season.

Like the other BHS teams, they will also participate in today's Blue and White Scrimmage.

The froshmore Vals may have some additions to their schedule later this season.

Many Class B school's don't have enough girls to fill a froshmore team, so the Vals don't have as many games for the froshmore team to play as they'd like.