Lady Buffs open season Friday

Mountain View aims to build on last season’s success

Don Cogger, Herald Sports Editor
Posted 12/13/19

Basketball season kicks off this weekend in Bridger Valley

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Lady Buffs open season Friday

Mountain View aims to build on last season’s success

Posted

After a second-place finish at the 3A West Regional Tournament and placing fifth at state, the Mountain View girls’ basketball team is hoping to build on last season’s success heading into its 2019-20 campaign.

“We’re young, but I think with having such a young program, the girls are working hard,” said MVHS head coach Jessica Moretti. “We’re pretty fluid right now — whoever is going to fill the spot, I’ll move you up, I don’t care how old you are. Just knowing those spots are up for grabs, the girls are working hard to claim them.”

Mountain View compiled an impressive 20-8 record last season, placing four players on the 3A West All-Conference team and three on the 3A All-State team. Of the four players who earned postseason recognition, three of them — Ailee Bugas, Charity Harmon and Lyndee Hereford — were lost to graduation, leaving some pretty big shoes to fill.

“We had a great season, and those seniors had great leadership in our program,” Moretti said. “But it’s been fun, because our returners who did get to play with those seniors have really raised the level of their competitiveness and focus in practice. They’re trying to mimic that leadership that we had last year.”

The Lady Buffalos return five players with varsity experience, including All-State guard Haily Stephens, who averaged 12.7 points and 4.4 rebounds a game in 2018-19. Stephens and teammates Sadie Mitchell and Bailey Henstra are the only seniors on the roster this season.

“Haily has been my leading scorer since her sophomore year,” Moretti said. “She did just get her tonsils out right before Thanksgiving, so she’s practicing as much as she can. Her level of intensity has been down, obviously, but hopefully she’ll be back to full this week. This will be Sadie [Mitchell’s] third year getting some varsity time, so I’m excited to have her back.”

Moretti is also excited about some of her younger players, including junior Kylie Dellinger and sophomore Kaycee Bugas.

“Kaycee is aggressive, and she just goes and gets it,” Moretti said. “We’re looking for a lot from our younger players, and the team as a whole just needs to continue to work every single day.”

Moretti added that team defense will be a major focus this season.

“If we can take care of the defensive side of the game, which I feel has always been one of our strengths, we’ll be competitive,” she said. “With having such a young crew this season, it’s important to have them really, really buy into that. So that’s been one of our big pushes in practice these first couple of weeks.”

The Lady Buffs opened the season at home Thursday, co-hosting the Bridger Valley Tournament with Lyman. The Lady Buffs squared off against Kemmerer Thursday afternoon and will take on Class 1A defending state champion Cokeville on Friday.

“I think this tournament is right where we need to start,” Moretti said of this weekend’s tournament. “Cokeville is going to be tough, I think they have five seniors coming in. Hopefully we come out of that first tournament with a few wins.”

As for expectations for the season, Moretti said the goal is always to make the state tournament.

“We’ll take the season one day at a time, but I think that with some buy-in from those girls, we’ll get to where we want to be,” she said. “We have 19 underclassmen and only six upperclassmen in our program, so giving some of those freshmen and sophomores a chance at some of those varsity spots early in their career is important. It will take some time to fill those spots — they won’t be set. There are a lot of possibilities.”