HELENA — The Carroll College men's and women's basketball teams will honor their seniors with a Frontier Conference doubelheader Saturday against MSU-Northern at the PE Center, the final games of the regular season.
“It’s been great so far," Carroll men's coach Ryan Lundgren said of his first season. "It makes it easy when you’ve got an unbelievable staff and you’ve got kids who are coachable and want to be here (and) want to get better on a daily basis."
"The great thing is, we’ve had a great regular season but we’re also excited about the postseason. We know that we can make a run in the Frontier Conference tournament and we know that (if) we get the chance to go to the national tournament, we’ll be able to make some noise, too. There is a lot of basketball left to play but to this point it’s been a really enjoyable experience."
One of the seniors making plenty of noise during for Carroll's men is foward Gui Pedra.
“It’s great. I wouldn’t have changed one thing, obviously, it didn’t start off well with the COVID process, playing with closed gyms," Pedra said. "But all of the people I’ve met, not only at Carroll but (in Helena) in general, just the community feeling, the small community, it’s been a pleasure to be part of this group of people throughout the last four years.
"I’ve made some great memories that I’m going to take with me for the rest of my life, for sure."
The men's squad has already locked up the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Frontier tournament in Great Falls.
"We always knew the potential we had, even though we started off the year with not the best record. But we just trusted each other and we knew the process. The coaches gave us great support throughout and we just stayed locked in every day, just kept getting better throughout the course of the year," Pedra said.
"Then we just hit the switch. Conference gave us a great boost and now we’re getting to the places where we want to be.”
One Carroll senior on the women's team who will be honored is Helena High graduate Jamie Pickens.
“I’m just surrounded by great people," Pickens said. "That’s what I think is going to make it so fun and emotional and exciting (to) wrap it up the right way.
"I am super glad I played. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made, super glad I came back. It’s going to be a great feeling to know that I did everything I could and gave all I could to this team. It should be a great night, very emotional."
Carroll women's coach Rachelle Sayers has seen her group of seniors grow throughout their time in the program.
"Obviously, this senior class has experienced a ton of success," she said. "They have been a huge part of what we've done in building the culture here.
"The biggest thing with these players is they had an opportunity to graduate and move forward with their lives and they chose to come back and give one more year to this program and to this community.
"For them to come back and give the effort and leadership that they have given has been second to none. Their commitment to this team and the overall success of this team over anything else has been huge."
Carroll's men start things off Saturday at 2 p.m. followed by the women, who will tip off at 4.
