Lady Pirates look to regroup for second half of season
NEW POLSON Pirates coach Juan Perez speaks to the Lady Pirates during a timeout. Perez, who is currently the coach of the Lady Pirates and SKC Lady Bison’s basketball team, has won five American Indian Higher Education Consortium National championships with the Lady Bison. (Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
POLSON LADY Pirate gaurd Jaycee Frydelund calls the play in the Dec. 15 game against Whitefish at Linderman Elementary School Gym. (photo by Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
Lady Pirates basketball coach Juan Perez may be in his first full season as a high school girls basketball coach but he is familiar with making adjustments as his team prepares the enter the second half of the season.
Perez made a name for himself making adjustments coaching the Salish Kootenai College women’s basketball to five American Indian Higher Education Consortium championships doing so.
As the Lady Pirates get ready to enter the second half of the season, they will have a chance to correct several key areas as they start of the second half of the schedule against their Mission Valley rival Ronan Jan. 5. They then turn around and play the Class A defending state champion Columbia Falls team the following night.
Perez has admitted the early portion of the second half of his team’s schedule isn’t easy.
“I think the girls are learning to be competitive in the game and I think we are really making progress,” Perez said. “We are doing pretty well but I think the girls are used to not looking for their shot. We’ve been working hard on making them understand if they are open, they should be looking for that open shot. They are starting to come around learning it’s OK to take that open shot.”
The Lady Pirates, who are still in search of their first win of the season, hope to have more success against two teams that experienced significant success last year. Columbia Falls is the defending Class A state champion, and the Maidens finished last season undefeated at Class B before losing both of their state competitions with key players experiencing injuries during the tournament.
“I know the Polson-Ronan rivalry is big but to me it’s just another basketball game,” Perez said. “We will look to compete with whoever we step on the court with.”
Even though Perez denounced the Polson-Ronan rivalry as “just another game,” he knows a victory against an experienced Maidens team would be a huge boost to the team’s confidence at this juncture of this season.
“It would be huge for us to be able to get to the win,” Perez said. “Our team is doing pretty well this season and for us, getting a win would be nice. It would be our first win of the season and Ronan is a good team. They will continue to do well this season. It would be nice to get a win.”
Perez knows facing Columbia Falls as one of their first games out of the break will be “tough.”
“Columbia Falls is strong, fast and they are well coached,” Perez said. “When I watched them during the Missoula Tip-Off, they look almost unstoppable. In order to have a chance against them, you have to slow down their transition defense and not let them get a lot of easy baskets. During the break we have to continue to work on conditioning, strength and hopefully be able to match their speed. They move well. We should be comfortable with our movements and be able to match them.”
The Lady Pirates will get an opportunity to teach some fundamental elements of basketball during a Pirate, Lady Pirates camp Polson will host Dec. 27-29.
“We are going to do a camp,” Perez said. “One night, as a team, we will go down and we aren’t just going to watch a Lady Griz game. We are going to down to observe it and try to learn some from watching the Lady Griz. That should be a fun team event for us.”