Pirates ready to transition headed into 2017 season

Last year the Polson Pirates’ boys basketball team was one of the perennial favorites to be in the mix to compete for a Class A state championship basketball title.

Though the Pirates didn’t get to their ultimate goal of capturing the title, they didn’t disappoint behind their senior leadership of forward-center Matthew Rensvold and point guard Tanner Wilson.

Both players were so athletically inclined they became the first Polson players to sign with the University of Montana-Grizzlies since Kirk Murphy did so in 1987.

The other significant change was one that affected several teams at the beginning of 2017. When the Montana State High School Athletic Association reclassified and aligned several teams in several classifications, it changed the competitive landscape of Class A.

The additions to the NWA Class A conference include two towns known for their strong basketball tradition. This includes Libby, Browning, and Ronan.

Pirates coach Randy Kelley said he felt he and his team will be ready for the new challenge they will face from their opponents and losing significant contributors to their team.

“I think when you bring in those three teams, it makes our conference stronger,” Kelley said. “We will have a District Tournament and everything will be just a little bit different.”

The Pirates lost Matthew Rensvold, Tanner Wilson, Jeremiah North Piegan and Jaden Bautista all to graduation.

“It’ll change and we will be missing an inside presence,” Kelley said. “We hope to open up a little more offensively and we are going to have to get after people. We are going to have to have a little bit more of a half court game. It changes every year and we’ve been kind of lucky to have the kids that we have. It’ll change our dynamics offensively and defensively. We will have to play a little harder, a little more aggressively and play team defense.”

Kelley said he is “encouraged” by his team’s summer participation this year.

“We actually had good turnouts for our open gyms and we have twenty to thirty kids playing basketball) two nights a week,” Kelley said. “We had the Whitworth Tournament in Spokane and we had ten kids play in that. That has been part of our gelling process for us and we are kind of excited.”

This December, the Pirates will play in a total of seven games. Kelley said he “isn’t worried” about the difficult schedule of basketball his team has in front of them before the Christmas break.

“We are kind of excited for the month of December because we will have seven games before Christmas,” Kelley said. “That will be a lot to ask of some of younger kids.”

Traditionally, the Pirates open up with a difficult schedule but unlike in previous seasons, they will now open their season up against Dilon and Frenchtown.

“We open up with Stevi, Butte Central, Corvallis, Hamilton and everyone from the southwest this year except Dillon,” Kelley said. “We possibly won’t see them until the divisional tournament.”

Because of their lack of an established inside threat, Kelley said he felt his team will have to adjust by becoming “more physical.”

“We are going to have to become more physical and maybe our players aren’t football types but we are going to have to get ourselves wrapped around that mindset,” Kelley said. “We have to be more physical, play better defense, and rebound better. Without Rensvold and Tanner, we will have our work cut out for us.”

The official day of practice doesn’t start until today. Kelley said he is “looking forward” to the season with a lot of the young talent he has on the roster.

“Looking forward, it’s going to be a different group and we are going to have to learn from every game that we will play,” Kelley said. “This season is going to be a little different. We don’t have that swagger. It’s going to get kids to step up, improve and knock off the teams we shouldn’t beat.