FRENCHTOWN — "It’s probably the most unselfish group that I’ve ever coached," said head coach Tim Yeager. "I mean they don’t care who gets the credit, they just want to win."
Now in his fifth year coaching the Frenchtown girl's basketball team, Yeager is gearing up for his first state tournament run with his team as the number one seed from the West.
"We’re certainly happy and blessed to be there but we’re not satisfied, that’s the biggest thing that I think some mistakes can be made, you just get there and you’re almost satisfied with it," said Yeager. "We’re definitely still hungry, we really want this, we want an opportunity, and we’ve given ourselves a pretty good opportunity to do this thing."
Junior Sadie Smith led the team in points in the opening round of the Western A Divisional, and now her eyes are set on State.
"Well I think we just all have that same end goal and we all are pretty selfless and we all know that it doesn’t matter who gets the credit," said Smith. "We have a team saying, 'I am because we are,' and that's the team saying we’ve had for the whole year."
It is a mentality that led to the team's Western A Divisional title where they outscored opponents 153 to 124.
"It was insane to be a part of, there were so many emotions that we didn’t even know how to like make it out," said Smith. "It was just a high for the rest of the night, still honestly in practice I feel like it has brought our level of intensity up cause we know that we can do it."
When it came to securing the one seed in the West fellow junior Madison Kaufman knows the experience couldn’t have felt more surreal.
"I looked at Sadie, we just all hugged each other, she was going crazy, our coaches were going crazy, it was a special moment that I’ll always remember," said Kaufman.
And now Kaufman is ready for what's ahead.
"I’m excited to play new teams, see new teams, and I’m just excited for like bigger challenge, and competition," said Kaufman. "And I’m excited to hopefully go far at State and do what our team I know we can do."
The Broncs will be looking to carry their momentum into State for Class A when it kicks off in Bozeman on Thursday, March 9.
