It was impossible to travel on some of the county roads to get to Havre to support the Pioneers in their basketball game at the District Tournament in Havre. Some parents couldn’t even make the trip to cheer on their daughters. We could listen to it on the radio, but it’s not the same as being there to cheer for their efforts. Big Sandy fans enjoyed watching the games this year especially the extreme effort the Pioneers made this year.

Even the Havre Daily News report that, “The Bears certainly took notice of how hard, and with how much passion, the Pioneers played with. No matter how much they’re down by, they always play like it’s a two-point game,” Box Elder star Lilly Gopher said of the Pioneers. “I’ve always noticed that, their attitude never drops. They never get down on themselves. They keep their heads up, they stick together and play really hard together.” Everyone has noticed the team that the Lady Pioneers have become.

One of the senior girls is Andrea Rutledge who loves the game of basketball. “It’s always been a sport with a lot of contact and it always takes a lot of personal motivation to work hard and to keep on working even when you feel like quitting. So, it’s always been a challenge to me to keep the team working together It has always been a fun sport for me.”

To the underclass mates she says, “get in the gym, work hard, work as hard as you can. Give it everything you have so when you get to be a senior you won’t have any regrets. Coach has always pushed us and she’ll push you. She got us going.”

Jenna Leader said the year was hard, but she really appreciates the team allowing her to lead them. She believes it was important that they broke through at the end of the year, and she believes they’re ready to go to the next step next year. And the advice she gives her underclass mates—“Get in the gym, stay in the gym.”

Sophia Reichelt, the last Pioneer Senior, said, “since we didn’t have a real high ranking this year it taught me to be super humble to be really understanding of other teams and never look down on anyone else because everyone else is trying so hard. And I learned, being in Big Sandy and playing basketball for Big Sandy, it has made me such a better person, even though we didn’t win, we still went out and worked our hardest and it taught us how to respect ourselves and how to work super hard.” And to her underclass mates, “work hard and never give up because things are going to get really good really soon if they just keep it up”

Freshman Madison Terry said, “I learned it takes hard work!” She’s excited for next year. And Freshman Alicia Bjornestad said “it was really nice to have role models, since I took a year off last year. I learned it takes a lot of patience. It was a great year. Our team did develop and we opened the door to continue building a better team.”

Thanks for a working so hard as a team, for helping each other stand tall.