Former Bravettes star Hildal dies in police shooting

The Flathead High School family received tragic news out of Ohio on Thursday that former basketball player Kesley Hildal died in a police shooting April 1.

Hildal spent just one year at Flathead, but had such an impressive senior season in 2008-09 — she averaged 18.8 points and scored a school-record 39 against Missoula Big Sky — that colleges took notice.   

She appeared to be a popular teammate and had a big booster in then-coach Kim Elliott, who mentored Hildal in his third and final season as the Bravettes’ varsity coach. 

“Kelsey is why we live,” he said Friday. “You glean from her to find what strength you’ve got. She definitely has a spark in my soul.” 

She was a comet at Flathead: Seemingly out of nowhere this highly skilled, 5-foot-4 player showed up and people couldn’t stop her. 

“She was allowed to come in from the Montana (Youth Challenge) Academy, as a trial thing,” Elliott said. “She was under extremely strict rules. She could not take a ride from anybody. She went from school to practice to home. Basketball was it. 

“Basketball was saving her life. And it did, for a while, until whatever that unfortunate situation happened with her this week.” 

The story at cincinncati.com said that the Ohio State Highway Patrol and Union Township police responded to a wrong-way driver on I-175 just before 11 p.m. on Tuesday. In a release, police said a trooper crashed his cruiser into Hildal’s vehicle, a Ford Escape, to stop the pursuit. Hildal displayed a firearm and officers opened fire, the patrol said. She died at the scene. 

Hildal was 34. In her life, she’d survived brain surgery to stop a disorder called hemifacial spasm, then a car crash that left her with a punctured lung, a broken arm and quite possibly a brain injury.   

Behavioral problems surfaced that eighth-grade year and continued until her parents sent her to a wilderness boot camp in North Carolina, then to the Montana Academy.   

All of this was detailed in a Daily Inter Lake story written by Dixie Knutson and published on March 7, 2009.   

“Basketball is so important. It’s a huge motivator for me,” Hildal said then. “I look forward to going to practice. I feel in my element.” 

By then, she was a sensation. Elliott recalled Brock Osweiler seeing her the first couple days in the gym and being awed. That was before she scored 39 against Joslyn Tinkle and the rest of the Big Sky Eagles. 

“How do you do that?” Elliott asked. “For her to do that, just on her own.”   

The answer might be where the hoop went up at her Ohio home.   

“She told me where she grew up, the driveway was on a hill,” Elliott said. “She’d practiced free throws and — because she didn’t want to chase the ball down the hill — that the most free throws she made in a row were 144.” 

Another answer is she was enormously gifted, or made from Division I stock — in fact her twin sister Alix was a standout soccer player at Ole Miss. 

Elliott served as her guardian for an official visit to UM and Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig. 

“He said, ‘We would love you to come and join us,’" Elliott recalled. “‘When I saw what you did against Tinkle and Big Sky, that definitely caught my attention.’" 

Like a lot of walk-ons before and since, Hildal didn’t stay.   

Hildal had tried her hand at mixed martial arts and according to some Facebook posts from friends and fellow fighters, was set to make her professional debut. 

Elliott noted she was involved with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but that contact with his former player had gotten more sporadic. Same with her parents, who’d thanked him profusely for his role in her time at Flathead. 

“Just a really gifted athlete, and gifted academically,” Elliott said. “She loved basketball and she loved ketchup. We’d go to restaurants, and she'd devour those little packets. And her tongue was always hanging out on free throws.” 

Elliott, not for the first time, became emotional. 

“She fought through some very unfortunate things that began with that accident,” he said. “If you’re coaching, you’re a parent, you’re a teacher. ... Just listen to the kids you’re involved with. Don’t judge. I learned a long time ago, give them time and space, let them play. Give them a hug after the game. I wish I could give Kelsey a hug right now."