Young Vals keep it close, but lose first game

The Valkyries froshmore basketball team dropped their first game of the season 43-37 to the Stillwater Christian School junior varsity team in a Monday night home game.

"I thought the effort was good," said Jim Epperly, Bigfork High School froshmore girls basketball coach. "We shot the ball really well and we hustled down the court well."

The Lady Cougars had a 12-10 lead after the first quarter, which they extended to 27-16 by the end of the first half. Stillwater added another 10 points to their score in the third and Bigfork earned nine. The Vals were able to outscore the Lady Cougars 12-6 in the final quarter, but it wasn't enough to dig them out of the hole, though they did get within two points of tying the game up.

"We fouled way too much, obviously," Epperly said. "We had 19 fouls to their seven. They got eight free throws in the fourth quarter. That's way too many."

Freshman Emily Stephens led Bigfork with 12 points including a 3-pointer and three points she earned in her four attempts from the free-throw line.

"Emily had a good game for us," Epperly said.

Sophomore Melissa Vanderveer was a big contributor for the Vals as well with 11 points, six of which she put in during the second quarter.

"I thought Mel played awesome," Epperly said. "I really appreciate her playing down for us from the JV. I don't think we'll have her do that again, but Stillwater's JV team is pretty good and it was a big help to have her with us."

Epperly's froshmore team had two other additions this week as well. Juniors Jessica Killian and Taylor McElroy played down from the JV team this week to help get them back into the swing of things after not playing basketball since their freshmen year.

Epperly said he thought it was a good first game for the Vals, but he did see some things he wants the team to work on while they wait for their next game, Dec. 17, a 4:15 p.m. matchup against Eureka.

"For the first game we did well, but there's three things we did bad that we will be working on," Epperly said. "We need to focus on not fouling so much. We need to make sure we know who we are guarding. There were way too many times that the girls were on the court and didn't have a clue who they were supposed to be guarding. We also need to work on our patience out there. We need to slow things down and just wait a little bit."

The game was the fourth of the season for the Stillwater JV girls who remained undefeated.

"You could tell the difference," Epperly said. "You improve so much even from your first and second game. It will happen for us too."