A year of significant growth for a team with minimal prior basketball experience saw the Powell Middle School seventh grade girls’ basketball team finish with a 14-5 record, dropping the conference championship game to Cody.

The season began with a 51-11 victory over Riverton in the opener as well as wins over Lander 56-11 and Lovell 38-23.

Continuing the strong early season run the Cubs defeated Burlington 38-8, Thermopolis 26-25 in a double overtime thriller and Worland 48-12.

The first loss for the Cubs came at home against Cody, falling 32-16.

“These girls started playing in fifth grade and I think that was their first year,” coach Bryan Bonander said. 

Heading over the mountain Powell’s slide continued, losing to Buffalo 28-24 and Sheridan 32-11 to make the team’s record 6-3 near the midpoint of the season.

The Cubs bounced back with a victory at home against Lovell 42-23 and another win at Rocky Mountain 44-16.

Powell then defeated Worland 41-17 and Thermopolis 34-15 before taking on Cody with a chance to snag the regular season top seed.

Powell once again was bitten by the Cody bug, losing 40-10 and finishing as the second seed in the conference heading into the postseason tournament with an 8-2 conference record.

Before the tournament took place, the Cubs went over the mountain once again, this time taking on Tongue River and Big Horn.

Powell earned a 32-31 victory over Tongue River and a 35-31 victory over Big Horn to finish the regular season 11-4.

“We got a lot more games, the competition was good for all of us,” Bonander said.

In the postseason tournament the Cubs defeated Riverton in the opening round 43-12 before defeating the host Thermopolis 27-21.

Heading to the championship game the Panthers matched up with a familiar opponent in Cody, hoping to defeat their rivals one time.

The Cubs were unable to overcome the experience of their opponents, and fell 34-18 despite a highlight play from Aspen French who hit a half court shot to beat the buzzer — the team’s only 3-pointer of the season.

“That Cody coach came up to me after the game and said he has seen a lot of basketball but this is one of the few crews that he has seen amazing growth since we first saw them,” Bonander said. “I told them after the Cody game that they are going to have to shoot baskets all summer and offseason long. They are going to have to shoot, dribble and work on their ball-handling to get better with the basketball.”

Slotting in for the Cubs as guards were French, Addie Gillett, Lucy Ostermiller and Charlie Taylor who helped cause havoc in a press for the Cubs defensively.

“Our strength was our backcourt,” Bonander said. “We had quick, fast girls that could cause some havoc.”

In the frontcourt the Cubs had height, with players such as Breiyah Bonander, Meredyth Giltner, Reagan Carter and Taylor Sweet showing a lot of improvement throughout the season in the post.

“They’ve kind of got to develop into their height because they grew quickly,” Bonander said.

He said that the team had a strong defense this year to help balance out the shooting of the team.

Bonander said that the entire team grew throughout the season, with the team being unrecognizable on the final day of the season from the day practice started.

And once again the team split the ‘B’ team into an orange and black team since 28 players went out to compete, allowing for players to play more time in games despite playing less games in the season.

Bonander said the ‘B’ team finished with around a .500 record this season with Emilee Reasch and Stan Hedges leading the team once again.

Bonander said he debated stepping back into the ‘B’ role this year or stepping back entirely this year due to his daughter being on the team, but he was glad he stayed in the role this season.

“We had an understanding that I would not bring home basketball, and she would work hard and not give me any trouble at practice,” Bonander said. “It worked well, we didn’t have any issues.”

By the end of the season the team continued to work hard and nearly everybody attended practice throughout the season.

“The whole year they came in and worked hard,” Bonander said. “It was a fun group, they came in and made basketball enjoyable.”