Adjusting To Success Bonners Ferry Girls, New Head Coach Mesh Into Winning Unit That Has State Basketball Title Among Its Goals

Lakeland issued the Bonners Ferry girls basketball team a wakeup call in mid-December.

Badgers senior guard Amy Regehr likens the Hawks’ 50-46 victory to a slap in the face.

“The first quarter we were hot (leading 18-4). It was like we couldn’t do anything wrong,” Regehr said. “I think we were cocky, we’d played Lakeland so many times. The loss really knocked some sense into our heads.”

First-year Badgers coach Jim Nash agrees.

“That was probably the worst loss I have suffered,” Nash said. “We lost a 12-point lead at the half. There was absolutely nothing I could do. They blew up at one another. We bottomed out.”

Bonners Ferry regrouped and refocused over the holiday break.

Last week, the Badgers dismantled A-3 Wallace 72-26 and A-1 Coeur d’Alene 77-54.

“Now, we’re playing as a team,” Nash said. “Everybody - whether they come off the bench or they’re a starter - understands their roles.”

Communication and acceptance are the keys.

“I knew what I did, my philosophy, was different than (Dan) Meeker’s,” Nash said of the previous coach. “The nucleus of kids I have are (five) seniors. After playing three years with Meeker, it would be an adjustment for them, as well as myself. We’re all learning.”

The Badgers program peaked last year under Meeker with a runner-up State A-2 finish to Intermountain League rival Moscow. It was the Bears’ third straight state title.

Meeker resigned in the spring, but Nash wasn’t hired until August.

“We’re getting used to (Nash),” senior post Jana Nearing said. “He has a lot of different things. We changed our offense totally. It’s different when you practiced for three years the same offenses.”

“(Nash would) call out a drill for us to do, we’d all just stand there,” Regehr said of preseason practices.

Nash, a former boys basketball assistant at Washington’s Class AAA Redmond, not only revamped the Badgers’ offense, but introduced man-to-man defenses.

“The offense is totally different,” Nash explained. “I believe the kids need to react to the defense, instead of running it structured from point A to point B.

“Offensively, it has been a struggle. But now that we’re doing it, it is really difficult defensively to take us out of the game.”

Nearing and Regehr, both 5-foot-9, make sure of that. The inside-outside offensive weapons lead the IML in scoring at 17.9 and 16.6 points per game, respectively.

“Quick, very quick,” says Regehr of Nearing, who averages 14 rebounds per game. “She has tremendous control over her body. She can shoot any which way, all twisted. She can shoot over people, around people, and you can feel it.”

Regehr, a returning all-stater, is a scoring threat up to 3-point distance. “Amy has always been good,” Nearing said. “She’s really confident. When she’s out there and she’s off, she gets it together real quick.”

Bonners Ferry (4-2 in league, 9-6 overall) will be busy over the next week, playing four games.

Lakeland visits the Badgers tonight. Bonners Ferry hosts Moscow on Saturday. The Badgers return to their home court Tuesday against Wallace, with a road trip to Priest River next Thursday.

Moscow is the big game. Five weeks ago, the Bears beat the Nearing-less Badgers 37-34 in Moscow. Nearing sprained her left ankle in practice and did not make the trip.

The Bears haven’t lost to an IML opponent in 45 games and are 59-0 against A-2 foes since 1989-90.

“We can beat (the Bears),” Nearing said. “Going out last year in the district (tournament final) and losing by seven showed us we have a chance. At state, it was 11 points. We want it.”

“We’re not thinking, ‘Oh God, (the Bears) are suppose to be No. 1 in the state,”’ Regehr said. “I don’t think record has anything to do with it. We have more heart than any team. I think heart is what wins it.”

Nash, too, is anxious for the Moscow rematch.

“Very seldom do you step in, regardless of where you are, and have a team that’s capable of winning the state tournament,” Nash said. “I’m really excited.

“I don’t have the ego that some coaches could possibly have - I’m into the kids. When I came in at the very onset, it was very evident and clear these seniors don’t want to just go to state. They want to win.”