Five Lady Mavs named to All-State Team

North Country Lady Mavericks Head Coach Amber Erickson spoke about all of her All-Conference athletes including senior Kaitlyn McColly, senior Kia Wasson, junior Jaycee Erickson, freshman Teagan Erickson and freshman Paige Wasson.

North Country's five selections were the most among 3C athletes this season, which was validated by their second place finish at the 2021 State C Tournament held in Billings earlier in March.

Coach Erickson's notes.

It's a huge honor to have five of our players selected not only to all-conference, but all-state as well. Kaitlyn, Kia, and Jaycee were also selected to the defensive team in which only five players in the district are chosen.

Kaitlyn McColly is probably the most versatile player I have ever coached. We could put her on the team's best post player or the other team's best guard and she could rise to the occasion and make whomever she was guarding earn every point they scored. Offensively, Kaitlyn has the skills to play either a post or a guard. She finished her senior year averaging 13.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 3.5 steals. She is a very hard worker and has a great attitude. We will really miss her intensity, hustle, and communication on the floor next year!

Kia Wasson has been one of our best outside shooters since she started playing in high school. She has hit so many memorable big game shots over these past four years, but she has worked very hard these last couple years to become a threat off the dribble. This season she was much harder to defend because of her ability to take people off the dribble to the rim and also pull up and shoot a jumper. Kia averaged 13.1 points, five rebounds and three assists this season and finished her senior year shooting 75% from the free throw line. Kia also elevated her game on the defensive end averaging two deflections and three steals a game. We will miss her amazing three pointers, crafty layups and sneaky steals next year.

Jaycee Erickson has put a lot of time into developing her overall game. This year she proved she could not only get the rim offensively but knock down three pointers and pull up jumpers as well. Jaycee averaged 12.6 points, 3.5 rebounds, four assists, and 2.4 steals this season and shot 75% from the free throw line. Jaycee is our floor leader and does an amazing job handling the ball under pressure a majority of the time. She has learned to see the floor and break the defense down and get the ball to her open teammates. She is also a great 1-on-1 defender. I am very happy we will get Jaycee back for another season and believe she will help lead her team to another successful season that extends deep into the postseason.

Teagan Erickson came off the bench for us this season and averaged 6.6 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 assists. Her length, speed, and athletic ability helped give us a different look in our lineup. This was the first season she has really played in the post, but she adjusted well and I was happy with how she adjusted to the physicality of high school basketball. She did a great job defensively and helping protect the rim finishing with 23 blocked shots on the season and was our leading rebounder with 145 total rebounds. Teagan is only going to get more confident in the upcoming years and will help us continue to strive to reach that State Tournament every season.

Paige Wasson played so aggressive and confident this season, especially for only being a freshman. She averaged 5.3 points and 3 rebounds this year. She was another player that came off the bench and gave us a spark all year long. She is a very good shooter and already is a 3-dimensional scorer. Her length and quickness defensively, and ability to rebound at 5'10" is another factor that will help us continue to make our runs these next several years. I look for Paige to become one of our main scorers in the future.

All five of these girls deserve this recognition but they also know that without their teammates they would not have been able to accomplish what we did this season as a team. Kelsee Cummings and Kora LaBrie were our other two starters who rounded out our seven-person rotation that we steadily used this year and without them, we would not have been the team we became working all the way into the State Championship game. On every team, you have so many different roles and some roles are more easily recognized or get more glory than others, my team this year was always willing to give up the individual accolades for the team win, and for that I am the most proud of them. Our twelve varsity players, and even our JV, worked so hard all season long in practice to push each other and make each other better and watching them celebrate their team's successes, whether they were on the floor or not, was one of the things I will remember most about this special team.

Kaitlyn, Kia and Jaycee have also been given the honor of playing in the HIT tournament in Havre with the Class C girls team April 2-3.