Viking girls’ basketball Coach Kelly Hawsen works with her team on some ball handling skills in a recent practice. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
Sweet sounds of basketballs being dribbled echoed from the Sawtooth Elementary gym’s open door earlier this week.
Poking my head inside, there was the Viking’s girls’ basketball team hard at work. In fact, twenty-one masked girls, grades 8-12, were practicing, working diligently under the tutelage of head Coach Kelly Hawsen and her able assistants.
Patient and persistent, Hawsen guided her players through a series of passing and ball-handling drills. The kids worked on spacing the floor, staying low on defense when guarding a ball-handler, talking to each other as they worked on sets.
“The girls are excited to play basketball,” said the coach on Tuesday, January 12.
With the first game scheduled for Friday, January 22, against the South Ridge Panthers, the kids have a lot of catching up to do on the basics, noted Hawsen.
“We are going to build a foundation of fundamentals right now. That will pay off later in the season. We have a lot of eighth-graders out, and we need to build skills,” she said.
Because of the COVID-19 Basketball Protocol set by the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL), registration for girls’ and boys’ basketball was limited to kids in 8-12 grades this year for the Junior Varsity and Varsity teams. And because of the pandemic, the season was delayed by about two months.
None of that matters now. Hawsen said her kids are just happy to be playing ball.
As far as defense, Hawsen said her team would play man, and on offense, “we will play to our strengths.”
One of those strengths will be returning senior second team All-Conference player Ariana Poyirier, who averaged 10.2 points per game last year. Also back is senior center Paisley Smith and a host of Vikings who saw a lot of playing time in last year’s 16 game season.
However, because of the Viking’s youth, Hawsen said she would play a lot of kids this year.
With the graduation of several key players from last year’s squad, the coach said, “We will have a different looking team, that’s for sure.”
Last year’s squad finished 9-11, but in the COVID-19 pandemic season, only 15 games are scheduled for 2021, and it’s more than likely some games will be canceled because of the MSHSL rules following the pandemic virus.
When asked if the masks bothered her players, Kelly responded, “No. Masks aren’t an issue at all. The kids are just happy to play ball.”
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