Lady Tigers' season cut short

The St. Regis Lady Tigers’ season was cut short when they dropped down to four players. Without a team of five, the girls forfeited the last few games of their regular season and missed out on playing at the district tournament.

“It’s too bad it was cut short,” said Coach Janelle Pruitt. “We didn’t get an opportunity to showcase what we could do.”

Pruitt said that St. Regis is a team who can come out and do well during districts even if they don’t have a great regular season. Even though they couldn’t play, the Tigers headed up to watch the tournament.

“It was important to go so they could see how other teams were playing,” Pruitt said. “Some teams excelled and some teams had a hard time. I wanted them to see what teams had stepped up.”

Pruitt said that team expected a tough season. They had young players and short numbers to contend with.

“We expected a rough go of it,” she said. “We had a lot of younger players, but I felt that during the end we were coming around.”

Right from the start, Pruitt noted that some of the girls needed to catch up on a few things.

“Not many of them have played much yet this year and are a bit fresh so we’re are getting back into the routine,” Pruitt said.

With only six girls, playing as a team was going to be essential. Pruitt said that the team was playing well together in practice and it would eventually carry into the games.

“We’re going to have to be playing as a team,” Pruitt said. “We’re not going to have one or two breakout players. We have to do it together.”

The girls saw the first sign of trouble with having low numbers in their opening game against Clark Fork, which they lost.

“We ended up losing, but I thought it went really well. There was just one bad quarter that really hurt us, but other than that the girls did a good job,” Pruitt said.

It was the second quarter that hurt the Lady Tigers, Pruitt said. She said that after the first quarter had ended, the girls came back in the second a little worn down.

“[Clark Fork] had a good run and we were a little slow adjusting to their defensive measures, which hurt us,” Pruitt said. “[Clark Fork] had plenty of subs on the bench and we were worn down a little.”

The team struggled early on against Alberton. Tending to get down on themselves when they aren’t doing well, and Pruitt had to encourage their spirits during halftime.

“The girls were hard on themselves. When they aren’t doing well, they take it to heart.”

Pruitt said they talked during the break at halftime and the girls came out in the second half with a better attitude and played Alberton more evenly.

By the time Christmas break rolled around, the girls were moving toward the second half of their season in January. Pruitt said that things were starting to move in the right direction.

“We feel like we’re in a great place from where we started,” Pruitt said. “The girls have made huge improvement and if they can keep up this pace of improving, we’ll be doing really great.”

The first game against Noxon after break was one of the hardest games the girls played. The girls ended up losing 62-11.

“We just weren’t playing well,” Pruitt said. “We had a hard time getting girls to the basket to score. It was definitely a learning experience.”

The girls had a rough first quarter to start things off. Noxon scored 18 points in the game’s first eight minutes and St. Regis trailed with zero going into the second quarter.