FRENCHTOWN — Year in and year out, the Frenchtown boys and girls basketball programs are some of the best high school teams in the Western A, and this year is no exception as the Broncs are now making a run to postseason play in a couple of weeks.
The makeup of both squads this year, however, is new.
On the girls side, Frenchtown lost a number of multi-year starters coming into the season after a heartbreaking overtime loss to eventual-champion Billings Central in the opening round of last year's state tournament.
But the No. 5 Broncs have bounced back and meshed quickly as they sport a 12-3 overall record.
"Just watching those girls who have played in big games kind of take that leadership role was huge," coach Tim Yeager said. "So it's been cool just seeing them step into that leadership role and really lead these girls and keep everybody together and moving in the right direction."
The Broncs sport three seniors in Heather Haskins, Bailey Hansen and Maya Skinner, as well as highly-recruited junior Mason Quinn, and with that leadership core, they've been able to bring younger players into the fold and bounce back after early setbacks in the season to emerge as a top Class A team.
"We learned from (the losses)," Haskins said. "And then we had to just kind of rely on each other in practice, which we have really competitive practices and that's kind of helped us build on from that. And then those tough games with Dillon as well, we're just ready for tournament time now."
"It’s been super fun to just build new relationships," Quinn added. "I've played with some of them through volleyball and then the seniors I’ve played with my whole high school career, so it's super fun just building new relationships and keeping the others strong."
On the boys side, it's a similar situation, with just one senior on the team in Leighton Cyr, and a lot of juniors and underclassmen contributing.
"We knew where we had to be," junior guard Konnor Klimpel said. "We knew conference play was going to be tough and I feel like we came out of the beginning of the season pretty hungry so we were ready to go.
"Just grind every day. Got to go out there, get better every day. Can't afford to take a day off."
The boys are 11-4 overall, and having gelled together quickly they've got their sights on honing the final details by the time the divisional tournament rolls around in two weeks in Whitefish.
"Credit our offseason work because I think we got a good handful of games with each other and we didn't shy away from, I think, good competition," Frenchtown boys coach Brandon Robbins said. "I think not winning in a lot of games this summer really kind of fueled us and we took a lot of growth that way and it's kind of carried over into the season."
"We know that it's going to be it's going to be tough, but I mean everyone on our team wants to win," sophomore Hank Smith added. "I'm confident in all of our guys, they're confident in me, like it's just our trust in each other and we know we can get the job done."
