Young Hawks Look to Make Noise in 2018
By Danny Waldo
If part of being young is making mistakes, then head coach Erika Gustavsen may be in for a long winter as her largely inexperienced Lady Hawk basketball team looks to return to championship form in 2018.
Bozeman returns just three players off last season’s squad that finished fourth in the state after falling 42-34 in the consolation final in Great Falls. Gone are five seniors off last year’s squad, including All-State guard Riana Rogers, as well as All-Conference performer Amber Tarabochia, both of whom are playing collegiately this year. Bozeman also graduated their one true post presence from last season, Elaine Chandler.
Senior guard Alex Carey returns after earning 2nd Team All-Conference last season, and will be counted on to pick up the scoring slack created with the loss of Rogers. Ayla Embry and Ashlyn Lewis are the other two players who saw significant minutes a season ago, and both will be expected to up their production as well while the rest of the roster gains experience early in the season.
Although Bozeman lacks experience in varsity action, a number of the new faces have played multiple years together, which Gustavsen sees as a strength of this year’s squad. “We have a lot of good athletes and a lot of the girls have played multiple years together which makes our team dynamic and over teamwork good.”
As with the boys, the biggest change this season for the Lady Hawks is the added challenge of competing in a divisional tournament for the first time. Bozeman earned an automatic bid to the state tournament last season after winning the Eastern Conference regular season championship, but this year Bozeman, and the other six conference members will battle for four spots out of the east at the Eastern AA divisional in Butte, March 1-3. Gustavsen sees both pros and cons in the change. “The divisional tournament will be a new experience. It definitely adds a different dimension to the end of the season and in some ways takes a little pressure off of the regular season. It will be an adjustment to playing another tournament instead of having a week of practice or a playoff game and the obvious, of playing teams for the third time will be interesting. I do think it will be exciting and give kids another feel for what the state tournament is like and make everyone fight for those four spots to go to state.”
Bozeman, which finished 16-8 and earned a fourth place finish at state last season, will open the 2017-18 campaign on the road at always tough Helena Capital on Tuesday, December 5th.
For a complete schedule of all Bozeman Hawk girls’ basketball games, log on to the Bozeman School District website at www.bsd7.org and ‘click’ on the activities page.
Danny Waldo is a local freelance writer covering Bozeman Hawk and Montana State Bobcat athletics.
