Girls working hard as season approaches

The Columbia Falls girls basketball team will rely on a squad of six seniors in its bid to make it back to the state tournament this year. Leading the Wildkats this season is Kayla DeWit, who has signed to play basketball with Montana State University when she graduates.

The six-foot post player was the team’s leading scorer last year, averaging 19 points and 11 rebounds per game.

While she’ll obviously be a key element this season, she’ll need plenty of support from her teammates. Practices have been going well, said coach Dan Fairbank.

“The girls are working real hard,” he said. “They’re looking like they should. They’re just not in quite as good of shape as they should be. We’re working on that.”

In other words the girls are running in practice. A lot.

Fairbank said he’s seeing good things from his seniors. Point guard Danielle Gilley and post player Jonna Werner put in a lot of hours in open gyms in the offseason, Fairbank said, and the work shows.

Both players will be key components to the offense and defense, he noted. Gilley at point guard will run the offense. In order to be successful, the girls will have to limit their turnovers and their ball handling skills have improved over last season.

“Gilley’s in good shape,” Fairbank said. “She’s worked hard on her game.”

Rounding on the senior talent is Allie Lampman, Kayla Stratton and Erin Hill. Fairbank still isn’t sure at this point who will come off the bench. Last year the girls took the Northwest A crown in a thriller against Polson, 48-46. The Lady Pirates are the team to beat this season. They lost no key players, Fairbank noted. They also beat the Kats in the state tournament.

“Polson should be the runaway favorite,” Fairbank said.

The girls play the same teams as the boys this season. They open against Stevensville and Hamilton this Friday and Saturday away at the Western A tip-off tournament. The Stevensville game is 2:30 p.m. Friday in Hamilton, the Hamilton game is 3:15 p.m. Saturday in Corvallis.

Then they face Flathead Dec. 16 away. They have a home game against Sentinel Dec. 18 at 4 p.m. It’s a challenging start to the new season, Fairbank noted. The girls beat Flathead last year, but the Bravettes are much improved this year.

In the past few years the Kats have started out the season slow, but come into form by mid-season, when they play the bulk of their conference schedule.