Rolling Buccaneers meet No. 2 Carrington

• Kelcee Dykins

Press Photo by Dustin Monke Beach senior Kelcee Dykins, right, looks to pass against Killdeer senior Megan Klein on Dec. 29 at Beach High School gymnasium. Dykins leads the balanced and No. 7-ranked Buccaneers with 15 points per game.

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The Beach and Carrington girls basketball teams have great respect for each other.

After Beach entered last season’s Class B state tournament as defending state champion only to get knocked out in the opening round last season, Carrington climbed its way to the state title.

“I first of all have a tremendous amount of respect for them,” Beach head coach Bob Waldal said. “They’re 2011 reigning champions and they have every back.”

On Saturday, the No. 7-ranked Buccaneers meet the No. 2-ranked Cardinals at a neutral site, the Bismarck Century High School gymnasium, for a game at 1:30 p.m.

The Buccaneers (10-1) have almost perfect this season, with their one loss coming against Linton-Hazelton-Moffit-Braddock, 60-52, in their second game of the year.

In its nine games since then, Beach has been averaging 68.9 points per contest, while giving up 37.4 points. The season has been good for a team with limited varsity experience.

Waldal said Saturday’s matchup against Carrington will be the first true test against an upper-tier team this season. He said the game against Linton-HMB was a test, but it was too early in the season to gauge where the Buccaneers were going to go from there.

“It’s going to be a nice game for us to see where we are at,” he said. “Win or lose, whenever you play a team of that caliber you are going to find out some of your weaknesses. Some weaknesses that you probably know that you have, but they will be exploited.”

Carrington (8-1) was ranked No. 1 all season until losing to now-No. 1 Central Cass 53-46 on Jan. 13.

“We are working off some injuries and I think we’re improving,” Carrington head coach Andy Braaten said. “We lost to Central Cass, but we learned some lessons from it.”

The Cardinals are expecting what most coaches expect against Beach — a battle.

“We know they are well-coached and highly skilled kids,” Braaten said. “They don’t have the experience that they’ve had in years past, but we’ll be in for a battle.”

The Buccaneers haven’t been lacking in the scoring department. Senior Kelcee Dykins leads the team with 15 points per game.

Waldal said the player that has come along just as he thought she would is sophomore Hailee Farstveet. The guard is averaging 13 points per game.

Beach has four players among the top 10 leading scorers in Region 7. Sophomore Bailey Waldal averages 12.9 points and Cydni Stedman averages 11.8 points per game.

“You can’t key on anybody, because any one of the starting five are capable of shooting in double figures,” Waldal said. “I’m pleased with that.”

The Buccaneers defeated Carrington 58-51 last season, but the part that caught Waldal’s attention was the defeat to his ‘B’ squad in that game.

“Their ‘B’ squad just annihilated our ‘B’ squad,” Waldal said. “The ‘B’ squad that we had last year is this year’s varsity. They (Carrington) have a lot of depth.”

DHS girls are looking for an offensive rhythm

The Dickinson girls basketball team has overcome multiple double-figure deficits this season.

The Midgets (1-7, 0-6 West Region) have shown sparks on the offensive and defensive ends of the floor and creating easier opportunities for baskets is something the team has been working on.

“We were working on a lot of our offense now,” Dickinson head coach Dan Pender said. “We are getting the ball moving without having to put one dribble down. We’ve got to move the ball and we have to be more aggressive.”

It doesn’t get any easier for Dickinson, which has tough West Region games on deck. It travels to Mandan today and hosts Belcourt on Friday.

“Right now we are just looking at improving every game,” Pender said. “We just have to get after it and start taking care of our things.”

The offensive production might be lifted a little bit with senior Leslie Beaudoin and junior Rachel Schroeder back on the floor. Beaudoin will play her first game this season after sitting out the last six weeks because of a training violation. Schroeder got hurt against Williston on Jan. 10 and sat out the Bismarck High game on Jan. 13.

“I think some of it is just to come back and play,” Pender said. “Rachel is going to be back for us, which is good, and Leslie is going to help us. I think everybody on our team has to step up.”

Though the Midgets have struggled at times, Pender wants his to show how good they can be.

“We’re better than what we are playing,” Pender said. “We just have to start mentally saying that we are better and just carry it over. When good things happen, more good things happen.”

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