Lady Hawks team in progress

If a little teamwork can get you a long ways, how far will a lot of teamwork take you?

Coach Doree Thilmony says her Lady Hawks have been big into the tight team concept so far in practice and is hoping that translates into success on the basketball court this season.

The Lady Hawks will open season play with a non-conference game against former District 7B rival Libby, which moved up to Class A this school year, in Libby Saturday.

Although she has only one starter (senior Haley Morgan) back from last year’s 5-14 team, Thilmony thinks the Lady Hawks are on an upward trend.

“These girls are not afraid to put in the work, a lot of them have been showing up early in the morning to lift weights before school,” she said. “And they really seem to work together well. The older kids are accepting of their younger teammates and trying to help each other out, and that is really good to see from my perspective.”

With Morgan the only returning starter, Thilmony will turn to other girls who return from last year’s team for support.

“Belle (Cooper) saw significant varsity time last year,” she said, “and Maya (Stiles), Hope (Slater) and Sarah (Detlaff) know the program well, too.

“We are excited,” she added. “We have been working together really well and look forward to seeing how we compete this season.”

Thilmony says she has been impressed with Morgan’s leadership so far, and adds that freshmen Jody Detlaff and Megan Baxter could also see minutes at the varsity level, sooner rather than later this season.

Due to realignment, there will be no district tournament this season. Thilmony and the Hawks will play in the Western B divisional tournament at Ronan Feb. 22-24.

The Western B appears to be very competitive heading into the 2017-2018 season.

“From our side, Bigfork, Troy and Eureka all have a lot of good kids coming back,” Thilmony said, “and Florence, Loyola and Deer Lodge all should be pretty good as well. It should be an interesting tournament when the time comes.”