The Big Sandy Girl’s Basketball team is heading to the state basketball tournament for the first time in 15 years. The girls team has spent the last week and a half resting, getting healthy, and preparing for their trip to Great Falls to face off against the top ranked teams in Montana. I spoke with Coach Travis Baumann about the team, their season, and the team’s morale going into the state tournament.
Travis described the girls as confident going into some stiff competition later this week. “Right now, because of the what they were able to do this season, beating Belt, CJI, and DGS, who were all ranked in the top 10 in the state. We beat all those teams and sent them all home so that we could go to state. We gave Winifred everything we had. So the girls have used that as motivation, knowing that they do actually belong in the state tournament. They feel pretty good. I don’t ask them: ‘Hey, how much are we beating Twin Bridges by?’ I just ask them ‘Are you guys good? Do you think we got this? You guys mean? Can you handle this?’ And every one answers ‘Yeah, yeah, let’s go get ‘em.’ So they’re not scared of Twin Bridges, who played in the state championship last year and didn’t lose to anybody. They’re not afraid of Saco, who hasn’t lost the game in two years. Again, they’re not afraid of Winifred. They’re just primed and ready to show up and play ball and throw the cards out and see what happens.”
Throughout Coach Baumann’s description of the tournament games over the past few weeks, he emphasized the heart the team demonstrated on the court. By the end of the regional tournament, many of the players had been dealing with a flu bug as well as numerous injuries. “We had some big heart moments from real leaders on that team. I mean there wasn’t one kid that was healthy. In our top six girls that typically play, not one of them was fully healthy. It was really neat and inspiring, actually, to see that these girls were just never going to quit or back down. They were going to keep fighting with everything they had. I was just insanely proud of them. What they were able to accomplish being as ill as they were, so it was great.” Travis recounted several students who were suffering with a stomach bug who played their hearts out throughout. Stories he shared included one player left the tournament to receive I.V. fluids in order to be healthy enough to play an evening game and another who took a time out to vomit before returning to the game. “To see where these girls were physically, if you came to a game and you were sitting there, and you just looked at our girls, you could see how pale a bunch of our girls were. How bruised up their bodies were, in comparison to other teams. Our girls’ legs and arms just look terrible. They’re just nothing but bruises. And to sit there and look at that and knowing that these kids are ready to go to war, every single time they step on the court is is just absolutely fascinating to me.”
Regarding individual efforts on the court, Travis remarked that he didn’t want to single any of the players out, which reflected his repeated emphasis in our conversation. Time and again he pointed to the team effort and how well every player was showing on the court. “I don’t want to single people out. But I’ll throw a couple out there, just in this divisional tournament… Watching little Sammy Bjornstead at 5’1 or 5’2 and tiny, what she was able to do against one of the best offensive players in the entire northern seat, Briella Becker… She was amazing. Knowing that Jenny Sant did it the whole game. And then Sammy came in and spelled her (Jenny) off of the bench while she was getting an ankle taped. She did her job. She just came in there, knowing that she was a young girl and she probably had no right in that game at that moment. And didn’t care. It wasn’t too big for her. She just came in and did it…”
“Against CJI to see Eve Yeadon going in there just as pale as she possibly could be and Alex Worrall sick. Both of them needing to puke before the game. Then watching them play and give everything they had even though it wasn’t as much in comparison to what they normally had was one of the prouder moments. Watching my daughter (Jai Baumann) step up and hit 5 three pointers in that game and make a really insane assist to Alex Worrall. Alex caught the ball and went straight up and made the game winning shot. I mean, those are moments that you just will remember forever.”
“Galbavy just coming in and and dominating the post against every single team we played against. She just plays hard, plays tough even against a 6’4 girl from Winifred. She did everything the right way and kept that girl from destroying us.”
During the regular season, Travis highlighted Eva Yeadon’s two 30 point games. “She’s just a scoring machine. At 5’10, she’s hard for people to guard. She’s so smooth with the ball. She’s a good shooter. Her IQ is really high. She’s just a phenomenal basketball player and she’s gonna go play college basketball somewhere. Kiera Galbavy had a 15 point rebound game. Yeadon had a 17 Rebound game. I mean those stats are ridiculous. My daughter, Jai, had a triple double one game, which means she had at least 10 points, 10 assists, and 10 rebound. It’s really hard to do. It’s the only one we had all year. So that was a really proud moment as a father, but also as a coach that somebody somebody did that. That’s really a difficult thing to do. Lots of moments this year that were super exciting for us. Going 15 and 3… That’s the best record the Lady Pioneers have had since the 2008 season when Coach Lackner was guiding them, and they got second at state. It was a great season, and it’s not over. That’s the best part about it is we have still have another chance to play.”
Going into the state tournament, Travis opined: “How great would it be to bring home some hardware? The Big Sandy boys last year got 3rd at districts, got 2nd at divisionals, and they got 2nd at state. That was really great. They brought home 3 trophies. We have 3 right now, since we got a conference championship trophy. The only thing that make it better is bring home some hardware at State.”
Travis closed our conversation with the same sentiment the whole town is echoing as our girls enter the state basketball tournament: “Go Pioneers!”
