Coach's Game Analysis

The 2010-2011 Lady Hawks finished the season with a 16-6 mark.We started out our season playing at the Fort Benton Pre-season Tournament against Fort Benton and Belt. We lost both of those contests, but we gained a lot of valuable lessons from those early contests. I knew that it was going to take the team a while to learn the system, but eventually we would start to click. We opened the regular season the next weekend by visiting Sunburst and playing Griff Bye's quick Refiner squad, and they beat us to send us to a 0-3 record. We recorded two conference victories before the Christmas Break to send us to 2-1 in conference and 2-3 overall. We worked a great deal during the break on our offense, especially getting our timing and confidence within the system. We came out of the break and lost a non-conference heartbreaker at the buzzer to North Star, as they hit a lay-up in the closing seconds. We then reeled off 12 straight wins to clinch the regular season conference title with an 11-1 record and an overall record of 14-4. During that 12 game span, we also notched victories against a strong team from Chinook and a double-digit victory at North Star. We headed into the District 10C Tournament as the number one seed and earned a bye. We played the Simms Tigers in the semi-final and defeated them to earn a trip to the championship game to face the Valier Panthers. We beat the Panthers in a very good game that saw us pull away in the fourth quarter to claim the 10C Championship. We then advanced to the Northern Divisional in Great Falls, where we faced the Geraldine Tigers. This was a very tight game for three quarters, but Geraldine executed down the stretch to beat us by eight to advance in the tournament. We dropped into the loser' bracket and faced the Box Elder Bears the following morning. We lost to the Bears and thus our season would come to an end. We finished the season with a 16-6 mark that included a 14 game winning streak. With the end of a season also comes the departure of seniors and we lost two great ladies in Kylie Richter and Larissa Lybeck. We had five girls selected to the 10C All-Conference Team: 1st Team included Jenni Ghekiere and Kate Graff, 2nd Team included Nikole Wolfe and Stine Haaland, and Larissa Lybeck earned honorable mention.

Our off-season included open gyms twice a week during the months of June and July, the CJI Tournament, a week-long trip to the Gonzaga Team Camp, and playing a couple more games at Geyser against Stanford-Geyser and Denton. We went 5-0 in our tournament in Chester, beating Cut Bank, North Star, Power, Stanford-Geyser and Chinook. Our Gonzaga trip was one of those trips that produced many memories while also getting to compete against some very good talent from the western United States. We had a total of four adults that drove the team the 500 miles out to Spokane. Our varsity played nine games in Spokane and our JV squad played 10 games during the week. We took thirteen CJI players and two girls from each Conrad and Great Falls Central to the camp. Gonzaga requires that you have eight girls to make a team so we needed to come up with 3-4 additional players to play on our JV squad. Our varsity compiled an 8-1 mark at the camp and our JV team went 8-2. Our girls also got to compete in many different skill competitions and work on their individual fundamentals during the week. Jocelyn and Nikole finished 1st and 2nd in the free throw competition and this was out of 450-550 athletes. We had three of our three on three teams advance to the final six in that competition. Our athletes were housed in the dorms on the campus of Gonzaga, fed at the food service and the facilities were simply outstanding. By the completion of the summer, we were able to play an extra season's worth of games.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
Fort Benton	(0-0, 0-1)	7	4	4	6	20
CJI	(0-0, 1-0)	16	22	15	4	57

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Macky Sangwin
(Offensive)	6 - Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	4-Haley Harmon
Points:	12-Macky Sangwin
Steals:	5-Nikole Wolfe

We opened our 2011-2012 campaign by hosting a tournament here in Chester. We hosted boys and girls teams from Fort Benton, Sunburst and Augusta, and this was a tournament for both the varsity and JV teams. Our girls were extremely nervous but anxious to finally get out and play a game after three weeks of practice. We began the game by using our zone press and dropping into our man to man, which we played the entire night. We forced 28 turnovers on the night and converted 27 points off of those turnovers. Fort Benton is a very young team and I only see them getting better with more experience. They came out and played us man to man and then played some zone in the second half. We really wanted to apply the pressure and then get the ball up the floor quickly to try and get some transition buckets. We dished out 15 assists on the night while only committing 10 turnovers. We held a 38-32 advantage on the boards, with 16 second chance points. We were able to play all eleven girls in this game and all of them got into the scoring column. On the night, we got 20 points from our bench and averaged .98 points per possession. Fort Benton will play the Sunburst Refiners tomorrow, while we will play a very athletic Augusta team. This should be a great match-up for us as they are a very quick and good shooting team. Augusta won their game tonight by 17 over Sunburst

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
Augusta	(0-0, 1-1)	14	4	9	10	37
CJI	(0-0, 2-0)	21	8	15	9	53

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	9-Kate Graff and Macky Sangwin
(Offensive)	4-Kate Graff
(Defensive)	6-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	12-Kate Graff
Steals:	4-Stine Haaland

Great early season matchup for both of us! We had heard a lot about how talented the Augusta Elks were and we were very excited to have the opportunity to play them at our tournament. Coach Kinna had visited with me about the fact that his girls had a pretty productive off-season and had taken second in the MSU Team Camp this past summer losing to the Broadus Hawks. They feature two very talented guards in Britta Young (13 points) and Katelin Smith (12 points) and have a post player that is developing into a nice presence in the middle. We came out of the gates and hit a layup right off of the tip as Stine hit Nikole for a layup. We played man to man and decided to put good pressure on the ball and to just make sure that we were in good help position. Augusta ran some ball screens in the corners on us and they executed them well. They were able to get the ball to the person on the roll and we just did not quite get into position to stop them. We made an adjustment and defended these a little better, but we ended up going to a zone. Augusta came out in a man to man but they quickly went to a zone as well. We felt we could get the ball into the paint and use our size advantage to get some easy buckets. In the first quarter, we did get the ball into the paint and they ended up fouling our shooters and sending us to the line. We shot nine free throws in the first quarter hitting seven of them. Kate Graff hit two three pointers in the first quarter forcing them to extend their defense. Kate got off to a blistering start as she accounted for 10 of our 21 points in the first period. At the break we held a 29-18 advantage, and we felt we were really making them take some tough shots as they shot 24% in the first half. We visited at half about keeping up the pressure and continuing to look to get the ball inside. Offensively, I was extremely proud of our patience on that end. We were looking to get the ball reversed a few times and get the defense to break down. We did just that and our shot selection was excellent. We outscored Augusta 15-9 in the third period to stretch the lead to 17 points heading into the fourth quarter. For the game, Augusta shot 25% on 13 of 52 from the field, and 8 of 16 (50%) from the free throw line. We scored 19 points off of 16 turnovers committed by Augusta. We had a 49-30 advantage on the boards which resulted in the Lady Hawks having a 62% in rebounding percentage. This means we got 62% of all the rebounds on shots attempted by both teams. We improved to 2-0 on the young season, and we will play at home on Friday, December 16 against the Sunburst Refiners.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
Sunburst	(0-1, 1-2)	6	2	6	2	16
CJI	(1-0, 3-0)	7	19	12	10	48

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	4-Jenni Ghekiere and Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	4-Jenni Ghekiere, Stine Haaland, & Kate Graff
Points:	11-Jocelyn Woods
Steals:	2-Stine Haaland, Jocelyn Woods & Caitlin Vinson

We opened conference play tonight by hosting Griff Bye and the Lady Refiners. The Lady Refiners are the last team to hand us a conference loss and it was our first conference game in December of 2010. Since then, we have reeled off 13 straight wins against the 10C, and tonight's game stretched it to 14 straight wins in conference play. Tonight didn't start out the way we hoped it would as the Lady Refiners built a 6-0 lead midway through the first quarter. Nikole Wolfe got us in the scoring column by hitting a three-pointer to cut the lead in half. Nikole and Stine would then hit four straight free throws, and we held Sunburst scoreless the remainder of the quarter to take a 7-6 lead after one. We began by playing man to man and then switched to a zone with emphasis on awareness of where #11 (Ehlers) was because she is the shooter from the perimeter. Sunburst has some pretty athletic and quick athletes that we did not want to have penetrate, break down our defense and then dish to their post players. We also got into our press during the first quarter and applied some pressure that forced Sunburst into some costly turnovers (16). Sunburst dropped into a 3-2 zone in the second quarter, which we used two different offensive sets to attack. Jocelyn Woods came off the bench to hit eight points and Stine added another eight in the quarter to outscore the Refiners 19-2. With a 26-8 advantage at the break, we discussed keeping the defensive pressure in the full-court and being patient and reversing the ball in the half-court to break down the zone. Sunburst came out in the 3-2 zone and they would also hit the first basket of the second half. I strongly emphasize how important it is to come out of the locker room and hit the first points of the second half. After Sunburst hit those two points, we came down and Nikole hit a long three-pointer to stretch the lead to 29-10. We would then extend the lead to 24 points at the conclusion of the third quarter. We would outscore the refiners in the fourth quarter by four, as Caitlin Vinson came off the bench and showed a great deal of hustle by forcing two steals and converting both for layups. Eight different girls got into the scoring column tonight, with 19 points coming off of the bench as Jocelyn led the bench contribution with 11. For the season, we are getting 17 points a game off of the bench and I can' stress how important that is. We are averaging 52.7 ppg and allowing 24.3 ppg, while holding our opponents to 21% from the field. On the night we were 10/13 (77%) from the line as Sunburst was 8/8. We held a 43-19 advantage on the boards for an overall rebounding percentage of 69.4%, with an offensive rebounding percentage of 65.6%.

	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(2-0, 4-0)	8	15	9	14	46
Simms	(0-1, 1-2)	6	13	11	11	41

Leaders:
Assists:	4-Stine Haaland and Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	7-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	3-Nikole Wolfe
(Defensive)	5-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	13-Macky Sangwin
Steals:	4-Kate Graff

We traveled to Simms tonight for our first road game of the year and faced a Tiger team that returned a couple of very talented starters and added a good group of incoming freshman. They return three starters from last year and then add a couple of freshmen to round out their lineup. Hollee Meek and Roxie Parenteau contributed 12 points on the night for the Lady Tigers. Hollee put up 14 shots on the night so she definitely has the confidence to be out on the floor. We knew this was going to be a battle and we were anxious to see how our first road test was going to be. We began the night minus a couple of players: Denerey Haaland (foot injury) and Jocelyn Woods (family). Jocelyn was coming off of 11 points the night before against Simms and Denerey had just chipped in 19 points in three quarters in the JV game, but she injured her foot in pregame. We knew we were going to have players play a few more minutes tonight and this would be an opportunity for someone to step up in the absence of these players. Haley Harmon stepped in and gave us a solid 12 minutes throughout the night and chipped in three assists. Simms began the night playing man to man and then switched to a zone, which mostly consisted of the 2-3. They also played a 1-2-2, but Nikole Wolfe drilled a three pointer from the corner that immediately got them to fall to a 2-3. This was a great game from start to finish and we would eventually stretch the lead to nine at 46-37. We had some costly turnovers down the stretch to allow Simms to cut the margin to five at the end. We shot 50% from the field in the first half and finished at 39% for the game. Simms shot 28% on the night and 12-20 (60%) from the charity stripe. We held a 37-29 advantage on the boards 13 of those on the offensive end. Brittnee Theel continues to play well for us at one of the post positions and she added two more blocks to her total. The team continues to average almost a point per shot as we were at .96 for the game. We survived tonight and escaped with a win and hopefully will be back at full strength on Monday night, when we travel to Valier to face the undefeated Lady Panthers (4-0).

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(3-0, 5-0)	14	12	9	7	42
Valier	(2-1, 4-1)	6	3	8	12	29

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	9-Macky Sangwin
(Offensive)	4-Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	5-Macky Sangwin and Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	11-Stine Haaland
Steals:	6-Kate Graff

Tonight we traveled to Valier to take on the undefeated Valier Lady Panthers. They are a team that returns 1st team all-conference and all-state player Shaunell Davis, along with her sister Stephanie, Turq EagleSpeaker, and Abbie Boumans. Coach Swanson does a great job with these girls and they finished very strong last season with a good showing at the divisional tournament. We played them in the District Championship last year in Conrad and earned a 46-34 victory to also advance to the divisional tournament. Both teams were 4-0 heading into this match-up and this would give one of us the early lead in the conference standings heading into the Christmas Break. The game started out with us hitting three 3-pointers by three different athletes to take a 14-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. Valier played us man and went 2-3 on out of bounds situations. We came out in a 2-3 zone and we really played this well throughout the game. We contested shot after shot and held Valier to 26.1% shooting on the night. In the second quarter, Macky got her third foul and thus had to spend a lot of the quarter on the bench. Brittnee stepped in and gave us some great minutes especially with her interior defense and boarding efforts. In the pre-game we discussed that the team to control the boards would be the team that most likely would come out on top. This category could not have been much closer as we out rebounded the Panthers 41-40. Both teams had 24 defensive rebounds and we had one more offensive rebound than they did. Shaunell had 15 rebounds with 6 of them coming on the offensive end. In the second quarter we really stepped up the defense and extended the lead to 26-9. I told the girls at the half that Valier was too good of a team to not come out and throw a run at us. We came out and got off to a great start in the third quarter and extended the lead to 32-9 with about five minutes left in the third. Valier then found some energy and we found ourselves playing a little passive. Valier outscored us 8-2 to make the score 35-17 heading into the fourth. In the fourth quarter, Valier played with the same energy as they did at the end of the third and outscored us 12-7, but we came away with a 42-29 victory to send us into the break at 3-0 in conference and 5-0 overall. We shot very poor from both the field (25.5%) and the line (48.1% on 13-27), but we put one in the win column. We forced 27 turnovers that led to 16 points in the contest. We have a lot of work to do and we will resume practice after the ladies enjoy some well deserved time off with their families for the Holidays. Our first game after the break will be on Tuesday, January 3 at North Star. Merry Christmas!

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(3-0, 6-0)	10	12	9	16	47
North Star	(N/A)	5	9	13	8	35

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	9-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	2-Macky, Jenni, Kate, and Stine
(Defensive)	7 -Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	13-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	2-Jenni, Nikole and Stine

Happy New Year! Tonight we traveled to Rudyard to face the Knights and we got a great battle from them. Shelby Lipp and Bettie Carlon returned from injuries for the Knights so Coach Campbell was back at full strength for the first time all year. North Star came out in a 1-2-2, which really surprised us as I thought they would probably play a man to man or a 2-3 zone. Jenni hit our first bucket in the paint off a nice pass from Macky at the high post to put us up 2-0. We had three other Lady Hawks score points in the quarter to put us up by 5 after one, including three pointers from Nikole and Stine. Five girls scored points in the second quarter as we would extend our halftime lead to 22-14. At halftime, I stressed to the girls that we were getting beat on the boards simply because we were not finding North Star and getting a body on them. We stretched the lead to 27-14 in the first couple of minutes in the third quarter as we were being very patient on the offensive end. We made some costly mistakes at the end of the third quarter and Lisa Carlon made us pay as she hit for 7 of her 10 points during the last few minutes. She had a stretch of scoring five unanswered for the Knights. They cut the lead to two and we got the last bucket of the third quarter to take a 4 point lead into the final eight minutes. In the fourth quarter, we hit 8 of 11 free throws, led by Nikole hitting 4 for 4 and Stine hitting 3 of 4. We zone pressed the last four minutes of the game to try and slow North Star down, but we made some costly fouls that allowed the Knights to stop the clock and get to the line. They would only hit 2 of 9 from the charity stripe and this was costly for them. North Star out-rebounded us in the game by one, which is the first time we have lost the rebounding battle this year. We are a +10 per game in the rebounding category so far this season through six games. North Star also had 14 second chance points to our 4. We shot 12 of 17 for 70.6% from the line and I am very proud of the improvement that the girls have shown in this area this season. We will now get back into conference play with a home game against Power on Friday night.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(4-0, 7-0)	22	20	10	11	63
Power	(1-4, 1-7)	2	11	7	1	21

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	9-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	2-Macky, Jenni, Kate, and Stine
(Defensive)	7 -Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	17-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	2-Jenni, Nikole and Stine

We hosted the Power Pirates tonight in a conference game, and we got off to a very quick start. Nikole Wolfe scored 17 first half points as we built a 42-13 lead at the break. Coach Dunk had his team come out in a 1-2-2 defense and this gave us an opportunity to work on some of our zone offenses. We applied some pressure and forced 26 turnovers that resulted in 31 points. We had only 10 turnovers that resulted in no points for the visitors. On the night we shot 50% hitting 27 of 54 attempts from the field. Jenni scored 14 points and Kate added 11 points to give us three in double figures. The Lady Hawks scored 1.13 points per shot attempt and 1.24 points per possession. We out rebounded the Lady Pirates 35-19 for a 64.8 rebounding percentage. Megan Han came off the bench and played extremely well scoring 8 points, grabbing 4 rebounds and getting 2 steals. We will now head to Heart Butte on Friday for another conference game. See you then.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(5-0, 8-0)	20	19	13	15	67
Heart Butte	(0-5, 1-7)	7	11	5	2	25

Leaders:
Assists:	3-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	13-Macky Sangwin
(Offensive)	7-Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	6-Macky Sangwin
Points:	12-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	3-Jenni Ghekiere and Nikole Wolfe

Fouls! Fouls! Fouls! That was the story of the night in Heart Butte. Thank goodness we were not the team committing all of the fouls. We were sent to the line 52 times in the contest and hit 32 of them for 62%. Heart Butte only had 6 points from the line, which led to a 26 point advantage from the charity stripe. The Warriors played a 2-3 zone and we looked to get the ball into the paint. We scored .97 points per possession and .91 points per shot in this game. We had 11 players get into the scoring column in this game, and three girls grabbed 8 or more rebounds. Macky Sangwin led the way with 13 boards followed by Jenni (9) and Kate (8). Our press was relatively ineffective for whatever reason, but we did force 23 turnovers on the night. The biggest advantage came in the boarding category as we out-rebounded the Lady Warriors 55-30. Our bench held a scoring advantage over Heart Butte 25-6 with Jocelyn and Denerey chipping in 6 apiece. Defensively, we held Heart Butte to 17% shooting from the field on 8 of 48. We will now return home to face the Chinook Sugarbeeters in a non-conference game.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(6-0, 8-1)	8	15	7	18	48
Chinook	(3-1, 8-2)	20	14	10	11	55

Leaders:
Assists:	4-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	4-Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	8-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	13-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	3-Kate Graff

Tonight the Lady Sugarbeeters came to town and handed us our first loss of the season earning a 55-48 victory. We knew this would be a good non-conference game to see where we were at half-way through the season. I told the girls throughout the week that we needed to take care of business with our conference game at Heart Butte and then we would get to play a very good Chinook team in a non-conference battle. Before the game we discussed that we would really need to defend the ball when it got into the hands of Taryn Norby, and we needed to front cut and be physical with Makayla Farmer in the post. I told the girls that the team that won the boarding battle would come out on top, and we were outrebounded for the first time all year (37-28). We came out in a 2-3 zone defense and Chinook executed very well in the first eight minutes with Norby and Farmer scoring 14 points in the first quarter. We switched to a man to man and this allowed us to put some more pressure on the ball and to stay on the shooters. Jocelyn Woods came off of the bench and scored six points on some great drives from the left side. She did a fantastic job of putting the ball on the deck and heading baseline. Jenni Ghekiere also had some very good moves in the post area, and in my opinion had her best game in the paint. She really took it at the 6'1" Farmer and we will have to take advantage of her athleticism against Makayla to have a chance in the rematch in February. We cut the lead to two points with a little over a minute left in the half, but Chinook finished the half on a 9-0 run to head into the locker room with an eleven point advantage. At the half, we discussed that we needed to hit the boards and play with some more energy. We wanted to have the deficit to somewhere around 4-6 points heading into the fourth quarter. We only shot 28% in the first half so that was also going to have to improve. We actually came out and cut the lead to six points with about five minutes left in the third, but Chinook responded and stretched the lead to fifteen heading into the final eight minutes. Kate Graff led the scoring in the second half by knocking down eleven points, while shooting 80% from the field. We shot 46% in the second half, but it was a little too late to make up the difference. Chinook shot 48% on the night, and you are not going to lose too many games shooting that well. We only committed 11 turnovers on the night and forced 18 Chinook turnovers. They say you can learn a lot from a loss and we will. We will head back to the gym for practice on Monday and then return to conference play against Dutton-Brady on Tuesday.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(6-0, 9-1)	13	22	14	4	53
Dutton/Brady	(2-4, 2-8)	7	2	13	2	24

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Kate Graff
(Offensive)	4-Stine Haaland
(Defensive)	5-Kate Graff
Points:	19-Stine Haaland
Steals:	4-Jocelyn Woods

Only 4 two-point field goals on the night, however 12 three-point field goals. Dutton/Brady played a combination of 1-2-2 and 2-3 zones tonight against us and did a great job of taking away our inside game. This was a game that was supposed to be played before the Christmas Break, but Dutton/Brady had a scheduling conflict so it was re-scheduled. We were glad to have it moved because it meant that we would get to face the Diamondbacks at full strength as Amber Reeve would be back from her injury. She is a very talented athlete and she adds a lot of skill and athleticism to their team. We played both a 2-3 and man to man against them tonight, along with some full court pressure. We forced Dutton/Brady into 26 turnovers, while we only committed 11. We converted those turnovers into 21 points and the Diamondbacks were only able to get 2 points off of our turnovers. Five different Lady Hawks knocked down three-pointers on the night, which was quite a sight to watch. Stine shot 7 of 11 from the field and 5 of 6 from three-point range which led to her 19 points on the night. As a team, we shot 39% from beyond the arc which equated to 1.15 points per possession and .98 points per shot. From the charity stripe we hit 9 of 11 for 82% increasing our team free throw percentage on the season to 62%. Megan, Nikole, Kate and Jenni were all 100% on the night. We were a +10 on the boards which also increased our season rebounding percentage to 57.2%. For those of you wondering what rebounding percentage means: Rebounding percentage is the percentage of all the rebounds that a team gets out of all the rebounds available during a game. Offensive rebounding percentage is the percentage of all of the offensive rebounds a team gets out of all the possible offensive rebounds. Defensive rebounding percentage is the percentage of all of the defensive rebounds a team gets out of all the possible defensive rebounds. We have a 48.1% offensive rebounding percentage and a 66.7% defensive rebounding percentage on the season. Our bench contributed 11 points tonight with Jocelyn scoring 6 and Haley coming in and hitting a three-point basket. We will now get back to practice tomorrow and then head to Sunburst on Friday. We will finish the weekend by hosting Simms on Saturday. We will be conducting the Hawk Pal Basketball Clinic on Saturday morning for K-6th graders from 10:00-10:40 and 10:50-11:30. At last count we have 77 athletes signed up for this.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(7-0, 10-1)	14	11	15	10	50
Suburst	(3-4, 4-7)	5	0	12	3	20

Leaders:
Assists:	4-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	7-Kate Graff and Jennie Ghekiere
(Offensive)	3-Macky Sangwin, Jenni Ghekiere, Kate Graff
(Defensive)	4-Kate Graff and Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	14-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	4-Kate Graff

We traveled to Sunburst tonight to face the Lady Refiners, which happens to be the last place we lost a conference game which was back in December of 2010. We have won 20 consecutive conference games and I am extremely proud of the girls and the progress and determination they continue to demonstrate. We started off by jumping to a 14-5 lead after the first quarter as Kate Graff hit a three-pointer to begin the game and Macky Sangwin scored 5 points in the quarter. Defensively, we played well in the half-court and held the Refiners without a point in the second period and led 25-5 at the half. Megan Han came in and hit two buckets in the second period. For the game she scored 6 points, grabbed 3 boards and had three steals. Our goal coming out of the locker room was to extend the lead and we did exactly that. We outscored the Refiners 15-12 in the third to extend the lead to 23 heading into the final eight minutes. Jenni Ghekiere scored 10 of those 15 points in the quarter and really played aggressively on both ends of the floor. In the fourth quarter, we had five different Lady Hawks contribute points as we outscored Sunburst 10-3. We shot 40% from the field on the night and held the Refiners to 26.7% from the field. We scored 29 points off of 25 Refiner turnovers. On the boards, we held a +12 advantage as we out-rebounded the Refiners 31-19. We will now return home for a conference game against the Simms Tigers. They trail us by one game in the standings and we know the importance of this game as we had a tremendous contest against them back in December at Simms. Simms has some very athletic individuals and they are very well coached so this should be a good one for everyone to watch. See you tomorrow night!

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(8-0, 11-1)	9	11	14	13	47
Simms	(3-4, 4-7)	8	4	5	13	30

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	7-Kate Graff and Jennie Ghekiere
(Offensive)	5- Kate Graff
(Defensive)	7-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	11-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	2-Stine Haaland

The last of three conference games this week and we accomplished what we set out to do, which was to give ourselves a little breathing room in the standings. We played the 2nd, 4th and 5th place teams in the conference this week and won all three of them to give ourselves a two and a half game lead with four conference games to play. Coach Danielson came out in a 1-2-2 zone defense and they guarded the perimeter very well as they forced us to take some tough shots from three-point range. We didn't get the wide open looks that we were hoping for as the Tigers worked the perimeter very well. I felt we needed to make Bailee Lapke work harder on the defensive end in the paint, so we could take advantage of our post players. We needed to get to their bench so that we could force them to play at the pace we wanted to play the game. We did a good job of making the Tigers take some off balance shots, but Cheyenne Lapke still hit 4 three-pointers in the loss. She is a very good shooter when you allow her to step into her shot and she hit some big threes. Our focus in our 2-3 was to concentrate on where Cheyenne and Hollee were. The two of them combined to shoot 8 for 30 for a 26.6% field goal percentage, but 6 of those makes were from downtown. We had a very balanced scoring attack as Nikole, Jenni, Kate and Stine scored 11, 10, 9 and 8 points respectively. We also had a great effort on the boards as we had 6 players grab at least 4 boards, and we out-rebounded Simms 37-16. We stress the phrase "one and done" which means to hold your opponents to one shot attempt per possession and the girls did an outstanding job of making that happen. Simms had 1 second chance point and 5 offensive rebounds, whereas we had 10 second chance points and 11 offensive boards. Simms shot 26% and we shot 38% from the field. We committed 15 turnovers to 10 for Simms, as we had quite a few of ours coming late in the game. We shot 14 of 18 from the free-throw line for 78%, which increased our season free throw percentage to 63%. One goal in the free throw area that I like to stress is that we would like to make as many free throws as our opponent's attempt. We have made 149 free throws and our opponents have attempted 169 free throws, so we are very close to accomplishing this goal. We will get back to practice on Monday and then we have a JV girl's game against Cut Bank on Thursday at 5:00. We then host Valier on Friday and travel to Dutton-Brady on Saturday.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(9-0, 12-1)	10	11	11	16	48
Valier	(6-3, 9-4)	6	3	4	5	18

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	9-Jennie Ghekiere
(Offensive)	4-Jenni Ghekiere
(Defensive)	8-Kate Graff
Points:	13-Jenn Ghekiere
Steals:	3-Stine Haaland

The Lady Panthers came to town tonight tied for second place in the conference with the Simms Tigers. We talked all week about this being a huge game as far as us reaching one of our goals set before the start of the season: To Repeat as 10C Regular Season Champions. We knew that Valier has some very talented players in Shaunell Davis, Turq EagleSpeaker, Abby Boumans, and Stephanie BullChild. Brittney Steele also did some good things against us in the first meeting in Valier. We wanted to focus on where their shooters were at all times against our 2-3, keep them off of the boards, and play with a tremendous amount of energy. We did not get off to a great start to keeping them off of the boards as Valier collected 6 offensive boards on their first two possessions that forced us to take a very quick thirty second timeout. I have always stressed that rebounding is more about heart than it is about technique and that is what we are going to need to have to improve on over the next five games heading into the post-season. Valier would go on to grab 20 offensive boards on the night for a total of 39 boards. We collected 9 offensive rebounds and a total of 40 boards. However, Valier only had 5 second chance points on the night to our 8. This meant that the Panthers did not shoot well from the field. They shot 7 for 54 for a field goal percentage of 13%, whereas we shot 37% on 17 of 46. We converted 19 points off of 22 Lady Panther turnovers and Valier converted 6 points off of 19 turnovers committed by us. Nikole Wolfe, Kate Graff and Jocelyn Woods hit 8 three pointers on 16 attempts against the Valier 1-2-2 half court and 2-3 zones. Coach Swanson would also play a little 1-3-1 defense that we had some success against by getting the ball into Jenni in the low post as she connected on 56% of her attempts (5 for 9). I was extremely proud of the girls tonight as far as coming out with the half court defensive intensity and communication about where the scorers were at all times. We held Shaunell to 5 points on 1 for 13 shooting from the field. She did get to the charity stripe 10 times, but only converted 3 of those attempts. She is a tremendous athlete and she had 15 rebounds in our last meeting, but the girls kept her off the boards as she collected only 4 tonight. Kate Graff and Jenni Ghekiere controlled the boards as they grabbed 17 boards between the two of them. Megan, Macky, Jocelyn and Stine also had a good night rebounding as well. I thought our execution out of timeouts was terrific tonight as the girls executed two plays out of two different timeouts: one by Haley Harmon at the end of third quarter, and the entire team after a full timeout to set up a play against the 1-3-1 defense. Jenni got a pass from Macky at the high elbow to put in a basket as she pinned the middle defender under the hoop. Great win tonight by the Lady Hawks! We will now travel to Dutton tomorrow for a battle with the Diamondbacks.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(10-0, 13-1)	15	11	5	10	41
Dutton/Brady	(3-7, 3-11)	8	4	7	8	27

Leaders:
Assists:	3-Stine Haaland and Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	12-Kate Graff
(Offensive)	6- Kate Graff
(Defensive)	6- Kate Graff
Points:	16-Stine Haaland
Steals:	3-Stine Haaland and Macky Sangwin

We are officially 10C Regular Season Champions and have earned the #1 seeding for the 10C District Tournament in Cut Bank in two and a half weeks. Led by Stine Haaland's 16 points and Kate Graff's 12 rebounds we earned a victory tonight in Dutton for 23 straight victories against 10C opponents. Coach Reeve really came out with a game plan to control the tempo and give his girls a shot tonight. They held onto the ball and controlled the action for the entire night and played even with us the entire second half. We held a 26-12 advantage at the break and talked about extending the lead in the second half. We shot 48% in the first half on 10 of 21, but only 24% on 5 of 21 in the second half. We only got our posts 5 attempts in the game and this is something that we must improve on in the next couple of weeks. Looking back on tonight, I should have dictated the tempo of the game by making some different choices on the defensive end. We began in our 2-2-1 press but we did not create too many turnovers as the Diamondbacks only had 11 on the night. We dropped into a 2-3 and they were very patient with their shot selection. However, they only shot 22% on 9 of 41. Our defensive field goal percentage on the season is 24.9% on the season and we are giving up 28.4 points per game. Once again, I should have made the decision to not sit back in the zone and apply some full court pressure and play at the tempo we wanted to play. We will now return home for a Tuesday night for a non-conference game against the North Star Knights. Coach Campbell has a very athletic club that I watched last week against Box Elder.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(10-0, 14-1)	10	14	15	15	54
North Star	(1-6, 5-9)	4	6	0	9	27

Leaders:
Assists:	4-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	5-Jenni Ghekiere, Macky Sangwin & Stine Haaland
(Offensive)	5-Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	4- Kate Graff & Stine Haaland
Points:	12-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	5-Stine Haaland

Tonight we hosted the North Star Knights in a non-conference game. The Knights came in with a 5-8 record, but they played a lot of early games without Shelby Lipp (All-State 2010-11) and Bettie Carlon because of injuries. I had the opportunity to go watch them play the Box Elder Lady Bears who are ranked #5 in the state last week. North Star led in the second half and Box Elder ended up pulling away in the fourth quarter for the victory. North Star is a very athletic and quick basketball team that I thought might present us with some trouble with some full court pressure. Stine and Denerey did an excellent job in handling the pressure of their guards throughout the game. North Star played a combination of zones in our last meeting, but visiting with Coach Campbell before the game I got the notion that they may play us man. Man to man is exactly what they did and they zoned all baseline out of bounds situations. I was glad to see some man to man as we have been facing quite a bit of zone. We came out and scored the first 4 points of the game as Macky got off to a quick start. We led 10-4 at the quarter break and we discussed keeping Shelby and Lisa off of the boards and to try and beat them down the floor for some transition baskets. Nikole got hot in the second quarter and she nailed two threes to finish the first half with 12 points, while Macky contributed 6. We held a 14 point advantage heading into the locker room. We talked about coming out in the second half with the goal of extending the lead and mixing up our offensive attack. Megan, Stine and Jenni all scored 4 points apiece in the third quarter, and we definitely extended the lead as we outscored the Knights 15-0. Our bench played tremendous for us in the second half and four of our five starters did not see any action in the fourth quarter. They really wanted to see some more action, but I told them if one of them was to get injured in a game where we were comfortably in control I could not justify my decision of playing them. All 13 girls saw playing time and 10 of them contributed points in the victory. We shot 48% and North Star 14% for the game. We were a +9 on the boards and we got 27 points off of 26 North Star turnovers. Two very impressive numbers on the night were that we averaged .93 points per possession and 1.02 points per shot. We will now jump back into conference play as we will head to Power on Friday night to take on Coach Dunk and the Lady Pirates. We will then have a well deserved weekend off.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(11-0, 15-1)	10	13	15	22	60
Power	(2-9, 2-14)	6	8	3	15	32

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Kate Graff
(Offensive)	4-Macky Sangwin and Kate Graff
(Defensive)	4- Kate Graff
Points:	11-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	4- Kate Graff

We traveled to Power tonight to face Coach Dunk and the Lady Pirates. Power has a court that is much narrower than a regulation size court and this really was an issue with our spacing on offense. Power came out and they were going to be real patient on the offensive end by holding the ball and making sure their shot selection was great. If you want to have a chance against a team that you know is a lot better than you, you want to reduce the number of possessions that team is going to get during the course of the game. On the flip side of that, your team must be highly efficient with the possessions they get. We got .88 points per possession and Power got .48 points per possession. Power is getting better every weekend and they seem to be getting some confidence. Turnovers really hurt the Lady Pirates as they committed 32 and we collected 25 points off of those turnovers. Power converted 14 turnovers into 15 points. We had eleven of our twelve girls get into the scoring column tonight, as we got 27 points from our bench. I was extremely proud of the way our bench came in and contributed. We held a 9 point advantage at the break and discussed that we needed to quit fouling and play with a lot more energy and emotion. We committed 18 fouls in the game and we try to make it a huge priority for no more than 6 fouls a half. Power did an outstanding job of converting when they got to the charity stripe (14/23 - 61%), and we had the same success (11/18 - 61%). Caitlin Vinson came off the bench and knocked down a three pointer and went 2 for 2 at the line, as she contributed 7 points. Haley and Denerey came in and added 10 points. Kate Graff had some very significant stats with 8 boards, 3 assists, 2 blocked shots and 4 steals. In the second half, I felt we played a lot more focused and determined as we extended the lead to 21 at the end of the third. We extended the lead to 33 in the fourth quarter and it ended up 28 as Power hit a shot at the buzzer. In the locker room we discussed that there are games that you know you do not have to play your best to win, but you must still get up emotionally to come out and play hard. There is not any excuse for a bad night defensively because that is all about attitude. There are going to be nights when the ball just does not fall for a team and that is going to happen. You can always determine your attitude about playing defense. Power ran a high-flex offense and I you must switch screens and not trail. We were also victims of over playing on defense as we had our bodies in the passing lanes instead of our hands. I always stress that if your opponent is playing you high; take them higher and back cut. We fell for this a number of times throughout this game. We will get better from these mistakes because our girls are always looking for ways to improve. I was very proud of Nikole for suggesting in the locker room that we work on our man to man defense next week in practice. This is exactly what a coach wants a team captain to do.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(11-0, 15-1)	33	14	9	13	69
Heart Butte	(0-11, 1-16)	3	2	8	1	14

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Stine Haaland and Jocelyn Woods
Rebounds: (Total)	8-Kate Graff
(Offensive)	3-Nikole Wolfe and Kate Graff
(Defensive)	5- Kate Graff
Points:	15-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	6-Kate Graff and Stine Haaland

Senior Night! Tonight we had six seniors take the court for the last time at CJI and they have had accomplished a lot over the last four years. This is my second year with this group and I would like to thank all of them and their parents for the opportunity to work with them over these two seasons. I told them in the locker room to go out tonight and leave everything on the floor as this would be the last time some of these fans would get to see them play. I said that many of our fans will follow us and watch us in the post-season, but some will be unable to make the trip. Wow! They definitely came out of the locker room and got off to a very quick start as we led 33-3 at the end of the first quarter. We forced a lot of turnovers (33) and scored 49 points off of those turnovers tonight. We did a very good job of keeping the ball away from them as we only committed 11 turnovers and more importantly they only got 6 points off of those turnovers. Last time we played Heart Butte we shot 52 free throws, but tonight we only shot 22. We knocked down 16 of them for 73%, and we averaged 1.15 points per possession. Our defensive field goal percentage was 21.7 as the girls continue to play very well on the defensive end. As a team we shot 43.4% from the field tonight and 38.9% from three point range on 7 of 18. Lots of hugs and pictures tonight as we say thank you to one heck of a group of seniors: Jenni Ghekiere, Stine Haaland, Megan Han, Macky Sangwin, Nikole Wolfe and Jocelyn Woods.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 16-1)	6	11	11	16	44
Chinook	(0-11, 1-16)	12	9	12	15	48

Leaders:
Assists:	3-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	10-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	4-Megan Han, Macky Sangwin and Jenni Ghekiere
(Defensive)	6-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	13-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	4-Nikole Wolfe and Macky Sangwin

Tonight we traveled to Chinook to face Charlie Robinson and the Lady Sugarbeeters. We have had some great games with them the last two years and we have won 2 of the last 3. Of these three games, all have been decided by 7 points or less and tonight was another thriller. Chinook gave us our only loss of the season so we really wanted to get the victory tonight, especially on their home court. We had to dig ourselves out of a little hole in the first quarter and we did so as we entered the break with a 21-17 deficit as they hit a three pointer right at the half. Chinook played a man to man against us and we played a 2-3 zone, focusing on where Taryn Norby was positioned. We came out of the locker room and both teams had a great third quarter as Chinook outscored us by one to extend the lead to five entering the final eight minutes. We applied some full court pressure in the fourth and this caused the Beeters some problems. For the game, we converted 20 points off of 22 Chinook turnovers. We tied the game early on the fourth and then there was a foul called on the baseline as Smith tried to hit a cutting Makhayla Farmer. It was called a shooting foul instead of a foul on the pass, thus sending Chinook to the line for two shots. I argued that it should have only been a bonus and the referee did not like the way the debate was going and I was awarded a technical. Haley Swank calmly went to the line and drilled both of the technical free throws to extend the lead to three. Robinson's team got the ball back and scored a field goal to extend the lead to five, but we came back and tied the game up. I was extremely proud of the girls for showing a lot of heart and knotting the game up again. There was a barrage of free throws shot in the fourth quarter as both teams combined to shoot 24 free throws in the final eight minutes. Entering the final minute the game was tied and Chinook hit a shot to take a two point lead. Brittnee Theel was fouled and went to the charity stripe and calmly hit two free throws to even the game yet again. Chinook came down and scored two more points to take another 2 point lead with 14 seconds remaining. We came down the floor and Brittnee got inside and was fouled again to send her to the line for 2 more free throws. We did not convert either of the shots and had to quickly stop the clock by fouling. Norby went to the line and hit both free throws to give Chinook a four point advantage and that was the last of the scoring. This was a non-conference game for both of us, but what a way to head into tournaments. We will enter the 10C tournament as the #1 seed and Chinook will head into the 9C tournament as the #2 seed. Over the course of the last two years, we have gone 2-2 against Chinook with all four games being decided by less than 7 points. Chinook has won by 7 and 4 points and we have won both of our meetings with them by 5 each. Maybe destiny has the two of us meeting in Great Falls in two weeks at the Northern C Divisional. Great regular season Lady Hawks!

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 17-2)	20	16	10	18	64
Dutton-Brady	(4-9, 5-14)	9	5	12	5	31

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland and Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	12-Brittnee Theel
(Offensive)	5-Kate Graff
(Defensive)	9-Brittnee Theel
Points:	16-Nikole Wolfe
Steals:	2-Stine Haaland, Brittnee Theel, Jenni Ghekiere

We have a drill called "3 Point Shooting Drill" where we try to make as many three pointers in ten minutes off of a rebound and an outlet pass to half court. The outlet person then throws a skip pass across court to a waiting three point shooter, who shoots and rebounds their own shot. This week in practice, we did the drill and the girls were one short of our team record of 103 set by last year's group the week of the Northern Divisional. However, we did not shoot extremely well yesterday in the Cut Bank Gymnasium during our practice session that we were awarded for earning the automatic bye in the tournament. Tonight was a different story. Bombs away! That is exactly what happened tonight in the semi-final game at Cut Bank against the Dutton-Brady Lady Diamondbacks. We hit 6 three pointers in the opening 8 minutes to grab a 20-8 advantage and finished the game with 12 three pointers leading to a 64-31 win to advance to the 10C Championship tomorrow night against the Valier Lady Panthers. Five different Lady Hawks hit three pointers tonight: Stine Haaland (4), Nikole Wolfe (4), Kate Graff (2), Haley Harmon (1), and Caitlin Vinson (1). I had to laugh as the referee told me that he was only going to award 2 points on one of the threes as one of them was a bank shot. After the game, Mark Daniels (KSEN Radio Commentator), asked me if that was a season record and I looked at him and replied, "No, we hit 13 against this same team about three weeks ago in our gymnasium." For the night, we shot 12-30 for 40% from beyond the arc. I am sure the Lady Diamondbacks are glad to see the end of us as we nailed 33-3 pointers against them this year in three games. Tonight we averaged 1.07 points per shot and 1.05 points per possession, which is fantastic! Another statistic that really stuck out tonight was the offensive rebounds that we grabbed (16) led by Kate Graff with 5. Brittany Theel was absolutely great tonight on the boards with 12, and Kate and Jenni grabbed 9 and 7. We grabbed a 36-14 advantage going into the locker room at the half. As a coach, you always worry about the energy coming out of the break with such a large lead, especially when you know the other team is getting challenged by their coached to come out and fight to cut into the lead. Dutton-Brady did just that as they outscored us 12-10 in the third quarter, but we found that intensity in the fourth quarter outscoring the Lady Diamondbacks 18-5. I always tell the girls that they can’t control when I put them into the game, but they can control how much effort they put forth when they are called upon. Our role players did exactly that tonight when they entered the game. All 12 girls saw action tonight and 10 of them got into the scoring column. Tonight was a great team effort and we will need that tomorrow night as we face the dangerous Lady Panthers from Valier.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 18-2)	11	16	10	13	50
Valier	(8-4, 14-7)	8	5	14	14	41

Leaders:
Assists:	4-Kate Graff
Rebounds: (Total)	10-Kate Graff
(Offensive)	2-Kate Graff, Jocelyn Woods, Macky Sangwin
(Defensive)	8-Kate Graff
Points:	11-Haley Harmon, Kate Graff, Stine Haaland
Steals:	4-Kate Graff

Championship night at the 10C District Tournament! We set a goal back in November to repeat as District Tournament Champions and that is what this determined group of young ladies accomplished tonight. In our pre-game I told the girls that approximately 100 girls were participating in the conference for this opportunity and now there were only 24 left competing for the title. I also stated that the girls should expect the unexpected because Valier was going to have to do something different in order to beat us. The first two games between Valier and the Lady Hawks were not much of a contest as we led by 30 in both contests and won by 13 and 30. Valier had been applying a lot of full and half court pressure over the latter part of the season so we were expecting to face some stingy defense. Both of the earlier consolation games went into overtime so we did not tip-off until 9:50PM. I think we were a little flat from sitting in the gymnasium since we arrived to watch the boys at 3:30. Kate Graff and Brittnee Theel really got us going in the first quarter as they hit for 5 points apiece and we jumped out to an early 11-8 advantage. In the second quarter, Valier was playing very aggressive, but they got into some foul trouble and sent us to the line for 9 attempts. We managed to only hit 5 of those attempts, but our defense played exceptionally well as we took a 27-13 advantage into the locker room at the break. Six Lady Hawks scored in the second quarter led by Stine Haaland and Haley Harmon with 5 apiece. Haley came off of the bench and had an exceptional game for us tonight. She is a sophomore and Valier's assistant coach, Kevin Kovatch, told me after the game they had no idea she was a shooter. At the break, I stressed to the girls to extend the lead and put this game away. Valier came out of the break and scored 6 quick points to cut the lead to eight, but we responded to take a 10 point lead into the final period. In the fourth, Haley Harmon added 6 more points to give her 11 on the night and we had some timely free throw shooting to put the game away. We shot 65% from the line on 17-26, and converted 21 Lady Panther turnovers into 21 points to earn the Championship. Kate Graff had an outstanding game tonight as she had a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds. She also had 4 steals and went 4 for 4 from the charity stripe. Stine Haaland also had quite a night with 11 points and 7 assists. I felt one huge key to tonight's victory was holding Valier's Shaunell Davis to 4 points on 1 of 6 shooting and limiting her boards to only 5. Three 10C District Championships in a row for this group of seniors and they all have come against the Valier Lady Panthers. We will now head to the Northern Divisional to face either Roy-Winifred or Denton as they have a challenge game on Monday night in Lewistown.

Game 21 vs Roy-Winifred @ Great Falls (Divisional Tournament Quarter-Final)

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 19-2)	15	2	10	27	54
Roy-Winifred		8	8	10	20	46

Leaders:
Assists:	6-Stine Haaland and Jenni Ghekiere
Rebounds: (Total)	6-Jenni Ghekiere and Macky Sangwin
(Offensive)	4-Jenni Ghekiere
(Defensive)	6-Macky Sangwin
Points:	19-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	3-Macky Sangwin

We faced the Lady Outlaws in the opening round of the Northern C Divisional Tournament at the Four Seasons Arena tonight. I was able to watch them play during the season against North Star and then in Lewistown against Denton in the challenge game on Monday night. They have two very good ball players in Shelby Smith and Danyce McClure and some other very athletic ball players. I watched McClure shoot 10 times in the opening quarter against Denton and she ended up with 26 points on the night, so we really made it a priority to know where she was at all times during the game. She is very difficult to defend because she is 5'10" and she can go inside and produce or she can bury the long ball. Shelby is more of a penetrator and is dangerous because she can find a way to get to the line and really hurt you there. We got off to a great start tonight as we jumped out to a 15-6 advantage after one period of play, with our posts scoring all 15 of our points in the paint. Jenni dropped in 11 points and Macky added 4 points in the quarter. They defended the perimeter very well, so we were unable to get anything going from the outside. Roy-Winifred came out and played man to man, which is something we did not see a whole lot of this season. We played a combination of both 2-3 zone and man to man with a little full court pressure in the second half. In the second quarter, we managed only two free throws, but we still held a one point advantage at the break. At the half, we discussed not letting McClure get so many looks as she nailed 8 points in the half. We also talked about coming out of the locker room with a tremendous amount of energy and focus. In the third quarter, Jenni Ghekiere was a huge presence in the middle knocking down 8 points as we held a one point advantage (27-26) heading into the final 8 minutes. Roy-Winifred would not go away as they tied the game 8 different times throughout the contest, but we never relinquished the lead the entire night. With the score knotted at 31, Kate Graff and Nikole Wolfe hit back to back three pointers to extend the lead to 37-31, which led to a 12-2 run to extend the lead to 45-33. During the fourth quarter, the Lady Outlaws were forced to send us to the free throw line 18 times as they tried to get back into the contest. We calmly sank 15 of eighteen in the period and 22 of 25 for 88% for the game. Nikole Wolfe was an outstanding 8 for 8, Jenni 3-3, Kate 2-2 and Stine 9-12 to round out the free throw shooting. McClure only had two field goals in the second half, but they were both from down town, and Shelby hit 9 of 10 free throws as they combined for 29 points on the night for the Outlaws. We shot 48.4% from the field (1.26 points per shot) and 50% from beyond the arc. We will now move on to face the 22-0 Lady Bears from Box Elder. This is what the post-season is all about and we look forward to the opportunity.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 19-3)	7	18	6	10	41
Box Elder	(8-0, 22-0)	19	8	11	12	50

Leaders:
Assists:	5-Stine Haaland
Rebounds: (Total)	10-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	4-Jenni Ghekiere
(Defensive)	6-Jenni Ghekiere
Points:	12-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	2-Megan Han

Opportunity was right in front of us tonight as we faced the 22-0 Box Elder Lady Bears in the Northern C Divisional Semi-finals at the Four Seasons Arena. We felt very good about this game, but we dug ourselves a very big hole after scoring the first two points of the game. The Lady Bears applied a great deal of pressure and we did not handle it very well in the first quarter and they got a lot of easy buckets off of our turnovers. We trailed by twelve points at the conclusion of the first quarter. During the quarter break I told the girls that they looked scared out there. I told them to just relax, play like they can and get back into this game before the break. Box Elder was forced to go to a zone because of the personnel they had in the game and that is when we took advantage of the situation. They went with a bigger lineup and we looked to take advantage on the perimeter as we hit 4 three-pointers in a very short time. All four of the three pointers were by different shooters. This also allowed Jenni Ghekiere to use her athleticism inside to score 6 points in the quarter. As the horn sounded at the half, we had cut the lead down to two points at 27-25. We talked about the great effort that we showed in the second quarter to get back into this game, and we needed to show the same amount of effort in the third quarter. We felt very good about coming out of the locker room, but we had a difficult time finding the bottom of the net in the third quarter and we trailed 38-31 entering the final eight minutes. In the fourth quarter, we were forced to foul to try and cut the lead and Box Elder calmly sank 8 of 10 free throws to ice the game. Jenni Ghekiere had a double-double to pace us and Aricka Wolf Chief netted 21 points to pace the Lady Bears. The difference in the game was that the Lady Bears scored 27 points off of our turnovers and we netted only 8 points off of their turnovers. Both teams scored very well as far as points per shot: Box Elder 1.04 CJI 1.08. We shot 89% from the charity stripe, but we only had 9 attempts. I really figured we would have at least 20 attempts on the night due to the style of plays the Lady Bears play. They were very disciplined tonight and we were careless with the basketball (25 turnovers). Megan Han came in and played some very good defense tonight as she was on her toes and her head was on a swivel. She did a spectacular job on the interior and had 2 steals, 2 rebounds, a block and an assist. We shot 54% from beyond the arc tonight and 39% overall from the field. We will now face the Chinook Sugarbeeters tomorrow morning for an opportunity to play for some hardware and a possible challenge game on Monday night. We do not control our own destiny anymore and we now face a little adversity. I always stress that adversity reveals true character so we will come out tomorrow and see what we are made of. This team has always responded to a loss very well so I don't have any worries. See you tomorrow morning at 11:00.

Varsity	Conf./Overall	1	2	3	4	Final
CJI	(12-0, 19-2)	11	6	9	13	39
Chinook		8	8	11	13	40

Leaders:
Assists:	3-Nikole Wolfe
Rebounds: (Total)	10-Jenni Ghekiere
(Offensive)	5-Jenni Ghekiere
(Defensive)	5-Macky Sangwin
Points:	12-Jenni Ghekiere
Steals:	3-Kate Graff

You can't get a much closer game than the one we just completed. This game featured 8 lead changes, 7 ties and the largest lead belonged to us at 11-5. Coming off of a Friday night semi-final loss is always interesting and today was not any different. As a coach, you wonder if your team is still thinking about the loss from the night before, did they get enough rest, do they want to continue to battle and how focused will they be? The first eight minutes answered quite a few of those questions as we came out and got up early, led by three seniors: Macky Sangwin, Jenni Ghekiere and Nikole Wolfe. They scored all eleven of our points in the opening quarter. Chinook had defeated 10C runner-up Valier on Friday morning to advance to this game so they were well rested. Both teams had a hard time finding their legs in the second quarter and Chinook outscored us by two, but we took a one point advantage into the locker room at the half. I felt we made a couple of mental mistakes in the first half that cost us having a larger lead. I had to remind myself they are only kids and kids are going to make mistakes, especially when they are mentally and physically exhausted. We talked about extending the lead in the first few minutes out of the locker room and applying some timely pressure. We only attempted 5 free throws in the first half and therefore we wanted to play more aggressive on the offensive end and get more attempts. We did get to the line 18 times in the second half and we hit 14 of them to finish at 74% for the game (17 for 23). Chinook also got to the line 18 times in the second half, hitting 11 of them. The fourth quarter saw us take a lead and at the 3:38 mark I remember looking at the scoreboard and thinking we were in great shape. We were up by 4 and we had a different lineup in that included our two sophomores. Denerey Haaland and Haley Harmon were doing some very good things in the latter part of this game. Chinook made some great plays down the stretch and would eventually take a two point lead with just over a minute left. We were fouled and hit one of two free throws to cut the lead to one. With just a few seconds left in the game, we had the ball and I called our final timeout to set up a last second play. I knew that more than likely Charlie would call a timeout after we got setup so that he could make some adjustments. We had set up a play for Haley to come off of a baseline screen into the corner where Nikole would look to hit her and she would either take the shot or look to dump the ball inside to Jenni. When Charlie took his final timeout, we changed the way we were going to set the screen from a single screen to an elevator screen. If Haley Swank jumped outside to defend Haley, we would then inbound the ball to Stine and she would get the ball right back to Nikole as she stepped inbounds for a shot. Swank jumped out to defend Haley and Nikole inbounded to Stine who immediately looked right back to Nikole. Nikole stepped in, received the pass back from Stine, got her feet set and let it fly. The shot was from a little deeper than I figured we would get it, but there was a defender that came out from the key sprinting right at Nikole. She did not have time to try and avoid the defender to get a closer look. The shot looked great as she released it, but it was just a little off to the left and that would be all she wrote. We got the look that we wanted and I could not have been more proud of our girls for executing the final second play. That walk back to the locker room seemed to take forever and entering the locker room to see some disappointed faces was even worse. We spent some time thanking the seniors and saying "Goodbye" to a great group of young ladies. I always try to let them know that I know they are hurting inside, but this basketball experience will merely be a small dot in their rearview mirror as they close this chapter and move on to another chapter in their life. I thanked all of them for the opportunity to coach them over the last two years and expressed how much they have taught me during that same timeframe. I would like to thank and congratulate all of the parents. You have spent many hours traveling and supporting all of these young ladies. You have also made a great commitment to the Lady Hawk Program. I would like to thank Rachel Ghekiere for keeping book for us all season and Barb Wolfe for updating the girls' basketball website this season.