GREAT FALLS — Last winter saw the Great Falls CMR girls basketball team make it to the Class AA state tournament but fall in the first round.
After not achieving what the Rustlers wished they had, they have aspirations of carrying over that experience and going further this season.
Juniors Kaylei Schultz and Rilee Mares — who both spent time on varsity last year as sophomores — said there's lots of excitement for this season, which starts this upcoming weekend.
"I think we can make it pretty far in my opinion," Schultz said. "We just want to be better than what we were last year and just pay attention to details, because that's what beat us."
"Having the experience from last year, like the faster pace, stronger girls," Mares said. "I'll be ready for that this year, and I think that our team will, because most of them were also on varsity last year too, so I think it'll be a really good year for us."
Coach Haley Vining said she expects "big things" from both Schultz and Mares.
"With that experience, they can also kind of be leaders," Vining said. "They're both leaders in different ways which is good, and you kind of need that well-rounded leadership to be a solid team."
Schultz, Mares and Vining all said the Rustlers won't have a lot of size, so they want to play quick and scrappy.
"Being quick, pay attention to details, and just having fun," Schultz said.
"Carry over the fast pace, and we have a lot of play makers, so I think our overall skill is pretty good," Mares said.
"We're not going to be the biggest team but that's kind of been a common theme for us since I've been here," Vining said. "So we're going to try to be fast, aggressive ... scrappy and just play harder than everybody we play."
The junior duo and Vining all said they think the team can go beyond where it did last season.
"Definitely make it further than we did last year," Schultz said. "Try to come close, or beat those teams that we didn't beat last year."
"Our common goal is definitely make state, and get a trophy," Mares said.
"What I'm trying to see is we're just going to compete every game," Vining said. "Can't guarantee we're going to make shots, but I want to guarantee that we're going to play harder, be more aggressive than everybody we play. And our goals are to get back to state and just do better than we did last year."
This Friday and Saturday, the CMR girls host the Kalispell teams from Glacier and Flathead to begin the season.
