Lady Hawks hope to live up to last year's success

Danielle Switalski

The Thompson Falls Blue Hawks have a tough year to live up to for the 2009-2010 girls basketball season after winning the District championship last year and taking home fourth place in Divisionals.

Although the team lost all-state player, Rheanna Padden who helped the Blue Hawks with their 14-10 season, there are still seven returning Varsity players from last year’s successful team. Returning are strong guards, Kyla Molzhon and Karli Cavill, who will be a huge help to the team.

This is the third year for Jason Reimer as Head Coach of the Blue Hawks. Reimer said height-wise they will be a small team this year, which will force the girls to rely on their speed, allowing them to play an “up tempo game.” Because of their speed, the team will look to create an offense out of their defense, hopefully running the ball down court with a tough pressure defense.

Reimer said he has plans to work with a lot of different defensive strategies this year, and not rely too heavily on either man to man or zone defense, but size up each opponent to decide which strategy will work best.

Reimer expects between 15 and 20 girls will go out for the season, and said he will have a lot of young players, which will take some time to build up into a strong team.

New to the conference this year is Big Fork, which could be tough competition for Thompson Falls as they have never seen them in play and Reimer does not know much about them.

“I think it will be fairly competitive across the board. The teams will be fairly even,” said Reimer.

Thompson Falls’ first game of the season is against Hot Springs during the Sanders County tournament November 11 and 12.

“It will be tough, but it’s our goal every year to win the District, but there are some tough teams out there,” said Reimer.

Comments on this story can be sent to Reporter Danielle Switalski at reporter@VP-MI.com.