I asked Travis Baumann what he wants for the Pioneer Girls Basketball team. Travis said, “To be competitive. We want to be competitive in every game we play. That’s everybody’s goal. That’s the girls’ goal too.” He believes we will see that at Stanford in our first game on December 3rd
Montana is going to have a 35-second shot clock this year. “Yes. A shot clock. Yep. Yes, it’s exciting.” Travis said they would be up-and-down teams, so he doesn’t think a 35-second shot clock will affect our girls. “I don’t think so at all.”
Travis Baumann is the head coach again this year, with Ella Jurenka as an assistant. They have 14 High school girls, but they will also bring up some eighth graders when their season is over this weekend. I asked Travis if his coaching philosophy had changed over the year. “No, I think defense first, right? I still believe in defense. How we’re going about things, this year is a little different than last year. Learning who your team is and adjusting to what they can and can’t do. I think the philosophy is the same, the heart and soul of it is all the same, but just tweaking practices and coaching styles to adhere to the different kids we have.”
Travis said, “I’ve been going back and watching every game we played last year in the last month or two, every game twice, probably. And we were seeing what worked and what didn’t work. Who was able to do certain things, and who wasn’t? We came together and came up with a slightly different approach. I would say we came together and figured out what our non-negotiables would be. And these are our expectations, and then we try to bring some positive energy to those things. The first practice probably was the best practice I’ve ever been a part of. The girls were just so excited, still very excited, and kept the tempo fast and cheering each other on. They keep their emotions high. Even though the stuff does not feel awesome to do, they still push through and have smiles on their faces. So okay, a different approach.”
“We sure would like them to come out and support these girls because they work really, really hard. They work exceptionally hard. At the end of last year, we almost beat Chinook right at districts, and we lost out, but then the girls went on to track, and they dominated the 9C in track and won a district title. They came back, played exciting volleyball, and made it to divisionals. They had great support from fans. Yeah, for volleyball, and so we’re just hoping that we could get good fans, you know, good fan turnout, not just parents and grandparents for our games. The boys get a huge turnout, and rightfully so; they’ve done well for quite a few years now. They’ve earned that, so we’re hoping to earn it too. They will be fun to watch how aggressive they are on both ends.”
