Kats on track

Moments after defeating the Bigfork Valkyries on Feb. 17, Columbia Falls coach Dan Fairbank gathered his excited girls basketball team and took a moment to remind them just how far they'd come.

With the 51-36 conference victory in front of a jubilant home crowd, the Wildkats won the regular-season crown for the first time since 1995.

Fairbank pointed out this accomplishment, but that wasn't the moral of the story. Even though not a single returning player could forget the previous season, he reminded them of it - 3-17 and 1-9. That's how the Wildkats finished last season overall and in conference, respectively.

From worst to first, the Columbia Falls girls, now 9-1 in conference, find themselves in the spotlight at today's divisional tournament at Glacier High School. They earned a first-round bye and play the winner of Polson-Whitefish at 6 p.m. Friday.

"It's all due to the girls working very, very hard, buying into the system and having some confidence in themselves," Fairbank says of the team's turnaround.

Despite a young core of players, they play more like a varsity crew that's been together for years.

"(Coach Fairbank) told us we basically have to look at this season as our chance to do the things we've wanted to do," says the team's only senior, Alyssa Ladenburg. "It's down to what we want and how hard we want to push for it."

One practice, one sprint drill, one day at a time, the Wildkats have kept their eyes on the prize - the "triple crown."

"We set these goals at the start of the season and decided that we wanted to go as far as we can, and so we kind of set up a triple crown thing," said junior Shay Grilley. "Go for the conference championship, now we have that. So now we're working on a divisional championship, and hopefully a state championship. But we're focusing on going one step at a time."

As a result, the Wildkats turned last year's final standings upside down and finished on top.

"It's been really exciting," Grilley said with a smile. "It's a little different going from only having one win to having only one loss. It's definitely a change."

So how does a team go from barely winning an eight-minute quarter just a season ago to grabbing the league championship?

A savvy senior leader, a pair of 6-foot-sisters and a team full of girls willing to do whatever it takes to win.

"We're all in it together," Ladenburg said. "Our group of girls all get along really well … This year we're all working for a main goal."

"We understand each other a lot and read each other in a way that I don't think other teams do like we can," said Kayla DeWit.

The two headliners for the Wildkats are the towering DeWit sisters: sophomore Kayla and junior Kelsey. The 6-foot tandem have combined for an average of 24.4 points-per-game this season.

But it takes more than that to land in the state tournament, and they realize that.

"We need other people to come in and be able to score, that's huge for our team," said Kelsey. "These last few games the other teams have really gotten on (me and Kayla), but we have other people who can step up their game and I think they've been doing really good with that."

Over the past two seasons, Fairbank has preached defense while trying to get as many players he could on the hardwood gaining first-hand experience. It didn't work out last season, but this time around, girls like Brooke Cady, McKenzie Reeve, Danielle Gilley, Ashli Fairbank and others have filled in the missing pieces to the puzzle.

"Everybody comes in and knows their role," coach Fairbank said.

"That's the nice thing, everybody tries real hard to fill the spots we need filled."

All season, the DeWit sisters have experienced what it's like to draw all the defensive attention down low. Now, at the divisional tournament, the entire team is feeling the heat of the spotlight.

"I was hoping that this could be the outcome and it's an awful nice feeling," coach Fairbank said, "but I've told the girls all week that the conference championship doesn't mean much if you can't get past divisionals. We have to prove that we're conference champs for a reason."

And in Northwestern A, there's rarely a dull moment, especially come tournament time.

"We got to remember that these teams are coming out to get us," Kelsey DeWit said. "We have to come out harder than ever because they're going to be working hard to beat us."

So heading into the postseason, are the Wildkats nervous, or excited?

"A little bit of both," said Ladenburg. "We're definitely trying to stay focused, especially with a bye, it's hard to go in and stay focused when other people have already been playing. So we're gonna go in and hopefully have an intensity that people aren't expecting."

Reporter Dillon Tabish can be reached at 758-4463, or by e-mail at dtabish@dailyinterlake.com