Athletes spend summer prepping for seasons

For most students, summer is known as time off, but for many athletes at Bigfork High School it is a time to concentrate on their sports of choice with open gyms, tournaments and time in the weight room.

The Vikings football team has a lot to live up to this season after capturing the Class B state title last year. Thus, this offseason has been an important one to the boys and their coaches. As they did last summer, players have been participating in what head coach Todd Emslie calls throwing practice twice a week all summer. Additionally, assistant coach John Little has opened up the school’s weight room for the boys nightly.

“They’re doing a nice job,” Emslie said. “They’re busy, but they’ve been showing up and doing well. It’s hard in the dead of summer to be thinking football for some of these kids.”

An addition to the summer schedule for the Vikings this year was participation in a team camp. The Class B Football Camp was held June 19 through June 22 in Ronan. This was the first year the camp has been organized, but it was still widely attended by teams from all over western and central Montana.

About 20 Bigfork players participated in the camp, which included drill work, team work and jamboree games.

“Our boys did really well,” Emslie said. “They went head-to-head against Ronan, Deer Lodge, Mission, Glasgow and Florence. It was great work for the kids.”

While Emslie said the camp was a positive experience for his team, there was one incident that put a shadow over the four-day event. While running the second play on the first day of the camp, rising junior Colter Trent dropped back to pass while playing at quarterback and planted his foot on the turf, only to have his ACL tear in his right knee.

“He’s a great athlete. That’s going to hurt our team,” Emslie said. “It’s heartbreaking to lose Colter.”

Trent, who is also a standout on the Vikings basketball team, had surgery on his knee at the beginning of July. He will miss the football season, but is expected to be recovered in time for the start of the basketball season.

Trent and rising senior Colter Mahlum were sharing quarterback duties this summer as coaches tried to decide who would replace Christian Ker.

“Now it’s completely up to Colter Mahlum,” Emslie said. “They were battling it out for the job. We hadn’t made any decisions yet, but we knew our quarterback was going to be Colter. We just didn’t know which one.”

Emslie and his team of assistant coaches will now be in the hunt for selecting a new second-string quarterback. That shouldn’t prove to be too difficult of a task though, as Emslie said he has a couple of young prospects that are showing potential.

Ker, who guided the Vikings to their title last year as the team’s steady quarterback, graduated in June, leaving one of the many important roles on the team that will need to be filled due to graduation.

“We’ve got some big shoes to fill from our graduating seniors, but I think we have some great kids that are going to be able to step in and fill those spots,” Emslie said. “I’m really looking forward to the fall. Numbers-wise we look good, and I think we will be competitive.”

One of the obvious voids being left is by Travis Knoll, who scored 33 of the team’s touchdowns last season, including a game-winner in the final seconds of the championship.

Knoll has spent the summer extending his high school career. He played in the Big Sky Class B all-star football game in June with Ker and fellow classmate Jerry Rose, who was a lineman for the Vikings. Knoll then went on to play in the Mon-Dak game the following week and the Shrine game July 16. Emslie served as an assistant coach for the last two invite-only games and was on the sidelines for the all-star game after having to give up his assistant coaching duties for that game due to scheduling conflicts.

“Travis and I put on some miles this summer,” Emslie said. “I think we’re both ready to be home for awhile.”

The summer all-star schedule ending isn’t an all around good thing for Emslie, though.

“After the Shrine game, when officially his high school career was over, it was a bittersweet thing to see him standing on the field for the last time,” Emslie said.

BOYS BASKETBALL

Even though basketball season is months away, many of the Vikings players have been using the summer months to get a head start.

Through open gyms and tournaments, the boys have been able to get used to playing with new teammates, and without old ones, while also getting acquainted with their new head coach Kurt Paulson.

To wrap-up their summer tournament schedule, the Bigfork boys competed in a varsity tournament in Frenchtown June 24 and 25 and participated in the Fire and Fall Back Tournament in Spokane July 14 through July 16.

Paulson took 10 players to the Frenchtown tournament, where Bigfork finished with a 3-2 record. The Vikes defeated Hamilton, Frenchtown and Arlee. They lost to Hellgate and Stevensville.

“We lost those two by about six to eight points,” Paulson said. “We beat the other ones pretty handily. They were all 20 or 30 point games.”

Bigfork’s varsity team finished with a 3-3 record in the Spokane tournament, which exposed the Vikings to teams the boys hadn’t played against before that were from much larger schools. Most of the teams were from Spokane and northern Idaho. Flathead High School was the only other Montana school represented in the tournament.

“It’s a really good tournament,” Paulson said.

There were 18 Bigfork players that made the trip over to Spokane and Paulson split them into a varsity and a junior varsity squad for the tournament.

“We played really well,” Paulson said. “(The varsity) went 3-3 and lost a buzzer beater to Post Falls, which is a really big school.”

The Vikes picked up their other two loses from Coeur d’Alene and Gonzaga Prep. Bigfork took the win in its game against Rogers High School from Spokane and beat both of the varsity teams that Flathead had in the tournament.

“They played well the whole tournament,” Paulson said of his Bigfork team. “The teams we lost to were huge high schools with lots of kids. They were the powerhouses of Washington and Idaho. I was really happy with how we played.”

The JV team was made up of mostly freshmen, which led to them losing more than they won, but Paulson was still pleased with their performance and effort.

“They played hard,” he said. “They didn’t do very well (in terms of wins and loses), but they were playing against kids who were juniors and sophomores and had a lot more experience.”

All-in-all Paulson said he was glad the summer season went the way it did.

“We got 19 varsity games in this summer, which is great,” Paulson said. “My goal was to get 16 or 17 in, so I was really happy. They were all really high-level, fast-paced, quality games. The JV kids got 10 to 12 in. All of those were on top of open gyms. We had good open gyms all through June and July too.”

Paulson is thankful that both he and the boys were able to get this experience as he prepares to coach his first season at Bigfork.

“It was good for me to get to coach them a bunch this summer before the season gets going in November,” Paulson said.  “I’m glad that they competed and got experience playing against teams that are at a level that they don’t see all the time. I’m excited that they got to play against some tough competition.”

GIRLS BASKETBALL

The 2011 summer has been a highly productive one for the Bigfork girls basketball team as the girls adjust to new positions and incoming freshmen.

Earlier this month, 10 Valkyries traveled to Spokane for a team camp.

“It went really well,” said Mark Hansen, who will coach the Valkyries for the fourth consecutive season. “The girls were 7-2 and they had some really good instruction from Gonzaga coaches and past players. The girls really enjoyed it. I know I did too.”

The Bigfork girls competed against teams from Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

“We beat some good teams, and we got to see some good teams. It was a great experience,” Hansen said. “There were a lot of big schools there. I think we were probably the smallest school there.”

Hansen said his girls incurred their two losses for fairly similar reasons.

“We played up-tempo teams with a lot of pressing. We didn’t handle the pressure very well,” Hansen said.

While one could stop to wonder how the Bigfork girls will make up for the loss of a handful of standouts who graduated in June — including Mallery Knoll, Quinci Paine and Caitlin Charlebois — the Valkyries aren’t stopping or slowing down for anything. In fact, if this summer is any indication, they are speeding up.

“It’s been one of our more productive summers,” Hansen said. “That’s the first team camp we’ve been able to get to, and we had good turnouts for our two earlier tournaments this summer. Depending on what else was going on with other camps, we had between five and six girls showing up for each of our open gyms too.”

Hansen said he feels the time spent in those open gyms and at those tournaments was highly beneficial.

“It was more about getting the younger girls used to playing with the older girls, and I’m happy with what we’ve been able to accomplish by this point,” Hansen said.

UP NEXT

Montana High School Association rules require all teams to stop practicing or meeting with coaches after July 31 until the designated start of that particular sport’s season.

Practice begins for cross country, boys and girls soccer, volleyball and football Monday, Aug. 15. The annual Meet the Vikes and Vals barbecue will be held at 6 p.m. Aug. 25.

Games begin for all teams the following week, though the volleyball team will compete in a tournament that Saturday.

PARENT MEETING

Bigfork High School and Middle School will get the 2011-2012 school year started with their Jump Start/Fall Parent Player meeting, which focuses on getting all required physicals, fees, forms and meetings completed and turned in prior to the start of the 2011 fall sports season. All individuals participating in sports at Bigfork must have a current physical/parent permission form in order to start practicing.

This year’s meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 8, in the Bigfork High School gym.

Attendance is mandatory for all students intending to participate in fall extracurricular activities and their parents/guardians. Parents will be given handbooks and schedules and will meet with the activities director. Fall coaches will also be in attendance to meet with parents and students participating in fall sports. Fall coaches will indicate sport specific requirements, start times and practice locations.