Resilient Bulldogs aiming to continue strong play in Spokane

1-3 seems like a lifetime ago.

After the Sandpoint girls started the season with that record, the Bulldogs have rallied off five wins in six games and have already surpassed their win total from last season.

Given the recent success, one might wonder what’s in the water that the Bulldogs are drinking?

But of course the answer lies in good old-fashioned hard work.

“They continue to come to practice each day and get better,” head coach Will Love said about what makes this team special.

Resilient is the right word to use when trying to describe what the Bulldogs have shown over the past weeks.

It’s also what embodied their latest victory over Bonners Ferry last Thursday where they overcame an 8-point halftime deficit to earn a win.

“I’m just proud of how hard these girls work, how receptive they are to feedback from all the coaches and how earnestly they work on the stuff we tell them to work on,” Love said.

The Eagle Classic provides Sandpoint with the opportunity to work on two things Love feels the team really needs to improve on if they want to contend for a league title — rebounding and reducing turnovers.

Rebounding has been a problem for the Bulldogs all season due to their lack of height down low, but Love believes they can overcome that if they establish a mentality built on a desire to fight for every ball that comes off the rim or backboard.

Love said the setup of the Eagle Classic has similarities to how the state tournament is constructed in terms of strange tipoff times which will give the Bulldogs valuable experience.

“These are game type situations where we’re not going to school,” Love said. “We kind of got to get ourselves motivated.

Sandpoint takes on Riverside 1:30 p.m. Thursday before battling Pullman 6:30 p.m. Saturday.