M-ette Basketball: Best Friends Sjostrom and Williamson hope to earn playing time as freshmen

The Malta M-ettes started their first practices on Thursday, November 20.

Even though this year's freshman class weren't in the heartbreaking 60-55 double overtime loss to the Fairfield Eagles in the 2014 2B State Championship, they already know the end goal for this season.

"Everybody's hopes are to make it to the state tournament again like last year," Joanie Sjostrom told the PCN.

She has been playing team basketball since the fourth or fifth grade.

Sjostrom showed that she has the ability to dribble well during the practice and believes that she may be playing either small forward or point guard, though ultimately that will be up to second year M-ette Head Coach Nate Hammond.

Sjostrom rates her jump shot a six, on a scale of one to ten.

When asked about how she felt about playing high school ball for the first time she said, "It's different because I really don't know what to expect."

She said for her game to be better, she needs to work on getting her shots off sooner.

Like Sjostrom, Monicha Williamson is a first year M-ette who has played team ball since grade school.

Williamson also believes that she will play the wing position.

She rates her jump-shot at a five and believes that in order to improve her game she wishes to practice with her older brother Allen Williamson, who's play stood out for the Mustangs last season.

"He's really good and he will make me better if I practice with him," Monicha said.

Sjostrom and Williamson have grown up together and are best friends.

"It's pretty fun. We push each other," Sjostrom said. "That's what best friends are for."

Apparently the girls are pretty competitive, because it remains to be seen which one is the better player.

When asked who wins in a game of one on one, they both answered "me."

"We don't really know because we've never had a serious one on one," Sjostrom said. "It's hard for us to play serious."

"I actually am serious (when we play)," Williamson admitted.

Though this is their first year in high school ball, both players have worked with Coach Hammond before at open gyms and at a basketball camp in Missoula.

"He's a really good coach," Sjostrom said. "He seems really encouraging and wanting to help everybody."

"He helped me learn to shoot better," Williamson added.

Williamson and Sjostrom both admitted if they were to go to shoot five free throw shots, they would hit three out of five, which is better than one of five.

Williamson admitted to having a few jitters, but that's only because she isn't used to playing with many of the other players on the team.

She feels that a few weeks of practice will help with confidence, enough so that if she were asked to play, she could succeed.

"I feel like it'll be a lot easier to play with the team, because we will all know how to play with each other," Sjostrom said.

In Malta's system the defense plays a lot of man to man defense, mixed with traps and a lot of pressure defense.

"We haven't really practiced a lot of that before, so we don't really know what it's like," Sjostrom said.

Though the girls have never played at the pace that they will this year, both agree that the best offense is a great defense.

There is hope for them yet.