Girls head to state tourney still hungry

Contest with Livingston Lady Rangers starts at 6:30 p.m. tonight

By DAVID ERICKSON / Whitefish Pilot

It's tournament time for the Lady Bulldogs, and they know anything can happen — as long as they take care of their business.

The Whitefish girls enter the Class A state tournament as the No. 2 seed from the Northwest conference behind the Bigfork Valkyries, who beat Whitefish to claim the division title.

The Lady Bulldogs have a date with Livingston at 6:30 p.m. on March 6 (tonight). The game will be broadcast locally on ESPN radio 1240 AM. The Lady Rangers were the first-place seed from the Eastern conference.

While head coach Tim Olson said he's happy Whitefish is going to the big dance, he said it will still be a business trip.

"We are certainly not going down there just happy to be there," he said. "We're going down to win some ball games."

Olson said the Livingston team has a lot of similarities with his squad.

"We've got some film on them. As far as match-ups go, I would almost describe (Livingston) as a mirror-image of us," he said. "They have a couple of guards that shoot well, and they don't have a lot of real tall kids. We've been out-sized for most of the season, so we've been working on being more physical."

Olson said his team is excited to be playing for a state title, and they have worked extremely hard to get where they're at.

"One of the things I noticed against Bigfork (in the divisional title game) was endurance," he said. "Our girls kind of wore out late in the game, so we've been working on conditioning in the week off."

Olson said that besides starters like Ashley Ferda, Kate Klundt and Amanda Ormsby, he needs the kids on his bench to contribute heavily so the team can be rested.

"We're going to be facing seven quality opponents down there," he said. "There isn't a weakness on any one of the teams that are going, so we're going to have to come out and play hard."