BASKETBALL PREVIEW: Coming off historic season, Glacier girls reaching for peak

There was nothing easy about Glacier’s climb to the upper-echelon of Class AA programs.

It took coach Kris Salonen five years to finally get the Wolfpack a win in the state tournament, something she and her team accomplished two seasons ago.

One year later, Salonen and the ’Pack brought home Glacier’s first-ever basketball trophy, capping the best season in school history (20-5) with a third-place finish in the state tourney.

Now that Glacier’s climb is nearly complete, Salonen and her team have been repeating two words as they set their sights on the top of the Class AA heap: “don’t settle.”

“Now where we’re at, it’s like you’ve worked so hard to build the program, get it to where you want it to be,” Salonen said.

“Our motto this year is ‘don’t settle’. Treat this like it’s a privilege, it’s a gift, and let’s bring home another trophy, and if it can be one or two better than last year it’s a bonus.”

The Wolfpack’s season tips off tonight on the road at Great Falls C.M. Russell at 7:30.

“This team is probably one of the most fun teams I’ve coached,” Salonen said. “We don’t have a game in, but they started the season off just excited. They wanted to be here, they’re really good friends, they get along and I feel like they want to work hard, they want to have success.

“It’s a good feeling as a coach.”

Good vibes abound at Glacier, where the Wolfpack returns an experienced roster that outscored opponents by 14 points per game during the 2014-15 regular season.

All-state point guard Hailee Bennett — who is committed to play collegiately at Division II Seattle Pacific — leads the ’Pack’s returners, coming off a season in which she averaged 13.5 points per game and shot 41.7 percent from 3-point range. This offseason, Bennett’s been working to become an even more dangerous shooter.

“I’ve always been a pretty decent shooter,” Bennett said. “But knowing that I’m going to play in college, (I’ve been working on) increasing my range and getting my shot off quicker.”

“(Bennett)’s going to be a really good shooter coming off screens this year,” Salonen said. “She’s always been, but she’s so hard to guard because she can come off screens and hit the shot, or if she comes off screens and they’re in her mug she’s going to take it at them.”

Bennett isn’t the only weapon back for Glacier, either. Junior Nikki Krueger is aiming to fill the void inside left by her graduated sister, Tessa, and Bennett’s fellow senior Taylor Salonen — Kris’ daughter — returns after a stat-stuffing 6.2-point, 3.9-rebound, 2.2-assist, 1.6-steal season.

“A lot of us have played together for a really long time,” Bennett said. “We’ve been around each other for a long time not just on the court but also off the court, and that has a lot to do with it.”

“Our chemistry is really good,” Taylor Salonen said. “We care about each other, we work really hard and we’re all determined to do great things for this program.”

Bennett and Salonen both pointed to Glacier’s defense as the biggest on-court reason for its success, and the proof is in last season’s numbers. The Wolfpack allowed less than 38 points per game in the regular season and held opponents to an abysmal 33.2 percent shooting from the field.

“We’re going to work really hard on defense,” Taylor Salonen said. “Defense is our main priority and our goal is to be the No. 1 team in the state on defense.

“We’ll stop the ball, run the ball and go from there.”

Salonen and Bennett have played together since third grade and spent most of that time under the tutelage of their parents (Bennett’s dad, Grady, is Glacier’s head football coach and an assistant on the basketball team). That familial feel extends to the Wolfpack’s locker room.

“We’ve tried to focus on relationships and taking care of each other as a team,” Kris Salonen said.

“What is it like and what does it mean to work hard? What does it feel like winning that trophy?

“Now we have so many kids that have been infectiously wanting that feeling and wanting to have that again.”

The journey to that feeling starts tonight and, Glacier hopes, ends late one Saturday night in Bozeman.