The Bears went into Dayton last week as fairly massive underdogs against one of the top 5 ranked girls squads in the state in the West Side Pirates in the Pirates own gym but showed a lot of heart as they have all year long despite the Pirates heavy advantage in the experience department. The game was fairly tight all game long thanks to some stellar defense on display by both sides but some clutch shots in the 4th quarter did finally allow the Pirates to pull slightly away and finish the underdog Bears off 39-32.
Some good things were definitely on display here for the young Bears team though, for one the long range shooting from the young guards was on fire when it was needed. Saydee Shaul and Emyri Walker were certainly the 2 best shooters of the night for the Bears both popping off a number of 3’s throughout the contest as the sophomores gave Bears fans an exciting potential glimpse of the future of the team for the next few years.
Obviously the other positive of note hear was as previously mentioned the defense from the young team who held an offense averaging about 50 points per contest on the season to just 39 and it was no fluke either, the Bears actually have the 2nd best defense thus far in the season in the conference behind only West Side themselves and are allowing just 42 points per game to date in the 22-23 season. It has been a very impressive defensive season to this point for the Bears despite dropping to 2-10 on the year with the defeat and despite having only 1 senior in the varsity rotation which looks incredibly good for the near future of the Bear Lake girls program.
The usual starting unit for Bear Lake consists of 3 sophomores, 1 junior, and 1 senior which often puts them at a disadvantage on pure experience and yet they play with a lot of heart and have competed in most of the games they have played this year, as next year and the next after that come one will reasonable expect the team to show some serious improvement across the board and even as this season goes on it has already been on display to an extent. The future is looking good at Bear Lake.
