Clare Converse enjoys ‘dream’ senior basketball season

After the Flathead Bravettes beat crosstown rival Glacier 52-23 on Jan. 21 and boosted their record to 9-0, the best start for the team in recent memory, they celebrated.

Second-year coach Sam Tudor helped stage an impromptu dance party in the team room by cranking up the stereo to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin.”

In some ways, belief has been key to the Bravettes’ success this season (they’re now 14-3 overall and 10-3 in Western AA) and Clare Converse has done more believing than most over the years.

As the only senior on Flathead’s squad, she’s been through it all, from the lean years to a 10-0 start this season.

“It’s kind of like a dream,” Converse said. “It’s been really exciting.”

Flathead had not had a winning season during Converse’s high school career, until now. The Bravettes were 7-14 her freshman year in 2018-19, and 4-16 and 2-13 in subsequent years and last made the state tournament in 2013.

“She’s got a high basketball IQ,” Tudor said. “For Clare, she’s had two different coaches and however many teams she’s played for and sometimes that patience can really pay off.”

It hasn’t been easy, but Converse is taking in every moment of her last high school season, bittersweet as it may be.

“I love my teammates and I learned a lot of valuable lessons just with being on a team and dealing with people,” she said. “But it’s just really fun, celebrating with my team and just going through all these games, especially after losing for so long and then being successful this season.”

Converse is a 5-foot-11 utility player that’s scored 146 points this season, including 13 Tuesday in a 44-37 win over Missoula Big Sky.

After that January crosstown game, Flathead beat Missoula Big Sky to get to 10-0. That was big.

“In retrospect we didn’t realize how special that was because we didn’t know how close the AA was until this until late in the season,” Tudor said. “And we realized, wow, what we did there was pretty special.”

Then came the letdown — a 53-22 loss to unbeaten Hellgate in the team’s lowest-scoring game of the season.

Now at the end of the regular season, Hellgate, which has a loss to Helena Capital, looms again.

“Hellgate is such a dominant team that we didn’t go in there (in the first game) with a mindset that was real confident and I think confidence is gonna be key in that game,” Tudor said. “Do we belong out there with them? And I mean, I think we do … But they gotta go out there and believe that they’re good enough to hang with Hellgate.”

Regardless of the outcome, the Bravettes are set up well going into the Western AA divisional next week and for a few years to come.

Converse is following in her mother’s footsteps and continuing her athletic and academic careers at Carroll College. Her mother, the former Catherine Mason, was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2008 and scored 1,492 points, still the third most in school history. Clare will play basketball, of course, just like her mom.

On Wednesday, Converse accepted an award for academic excellence that required a 4.0 GPA and extracurricular activities every year.

“That to me kind of helps put a perspective on who Clare is,” Tudor said. “She’s not just a basketball player, she’s a smart kid and a very compassionate, good kid that teammates love being around her. She mentioned in the award ceremony that one of her proudest accomplishments was having a big winning season this year after struggling for three years. I think that she’s earned every bit of what we’ll get this year and hopefully we can get her to state and let her perform.”