Kicking off the summer in Montana the Powell Panther girls’ basketball team went undefeated in a team tournament in Billings to end May, going 5-0 and gaining valuable experience for a team that has its sights set high next year.

Coach Chelsea Kistler said that the Panthers were able to get a number of varsity rotation players in Emery Hernandez, Leah Graham and Coy Erickson who got significant minutes last year to attend, alongside Kaedenze Carter, Hali Hancock, Shelby Zickefoose and Kindyle Floy who all played varsity basketball a year ago but were not significant rotational players.

“I wasn’t sure how it would go as far as continuing to mesh and blend together,” Kistler said. “I knew we would be fine, I just thought it would take a little bit of time in camp to get to that point. We were running the same offense, essentially just trying to grow in the capacity of what we put in last year, because we have very similar personnel, we’re super guard heavy.”

The Panthers defeated Montana teams Billings West, Billings Senior, Lockwood, Custer, Hysham and Melstone.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Kistler said. “They were just clicking on all cylinders. We were a little bit rusty in the first game, but then it just continued to get better every single game. They were learning how to reach each other and how we were going to pop to different places, or little pocket passes down to our post off the drives, and just making that right read. If it’s going to be a pocket pass, a kick out or take it for yourself. They did a really good job of all the above and a lot of promise for the future.”

Finishing out the weekend with an undefeated record was not easy for the Panthers, as they were without Graham for the second day of competition and needed a win over the other undefeated team in Melstone to cap off the weekend strong.

“It was a battle for that last game … I brought up three kids that we’d brought up last year to JV. So we brought up Autumn (Kidd), Jesi (Agee) and Veronica (Kovach) to help us out a little bit, dip their toes in there. They did a good job when they were in there. It really helped us, allowed our varsity kids to get a little longer breather before having to go right back in the game. Overall, I just thought it was a very successful weekend even beyond the win column.”

After the success to kick off the summer, Kistler was hopeful the Panthers would take that momentum from the undefeated weekend and carry it into the summer before taking off late in the fall for their actual season, giving them significant confidence and experience to take that next step at the state tournament.

“I think that will really ignite and light a fire and put a little excitement in them, knowing that we have some really good pieces to our puzzle going on right now. I’m excited to see the kids who haven’t maybe been a larger piece of that puzzle,” she said, adding, “I’m just looking forward to those kids who had more experience at JV last year to see what they’re going to bring to the puzzle this year physically. They’ve been awesome teammates and awesome energy up to this point and given us great looks in practice.”

Kistler said her returning varsity players who saw significant minutes had good things to say about their younger teammates.

“That was really nice to hear them be excited for them and be excited to get to play with those guys next year,” she said.