TMS girls basketball winding down

The girls basketball teams at Thermopolis Middle School are down to their final two weeks and both 7th and 8th grade teams have had successful seasons according to coaches Katie Despain and Kent Hessenthaler.

According to Hessenthaler, the 7th grade “A” squad currently has a 3-7 record and the “B” squad is sporting a 4-5 record.

“This season has been filled with adversity and great efforts by our girls,” Hessenthaler said. “We started the season with just nine girls on the team, but due to the flu-bug we have played most games with just seven girls.”

Hessenthaler said there were even some games where they were down to just six players due to illness, making it extremely difficult when they often play four games in five hours.

“But our girls are really tough,” he said. “We have steadily improved, winning most of our games in the second half of the season against teams that beat us easily in our first meeting.”

As a coach, Hessenthaler feels good that they are playing better at the end of the season than at the beginning. He added that probably their best win was against Worland in Worland last week.

“With our tournament just around the corner,” he said, “I hope to get the flu-bug behind us and make a great run at bringing home some hardware.”

Despain, the 8th grade coach, said overall, the season has been fun with the girls.

“The girls have been improving game to game,” she said. “I am excited to watch the girls next year at the high school level.

“They have a lot of potential and will become even better athletes moving forward.”

The “B” squad has won all of their games so far this season and Despain is confident they should be able to continue the pattern throughout the rest of the week.

“We go to tournaments the weekend of the 25th,” she said, “and then our season is wrapped up. I could not have asked for a better bunch of girls to coach this year.

“I will most certainly miss them next year!”