The Coquille Wildcats girls basketball team took first place in their recent Oregon Amateur Basketball tournament, improving to 25-3 on the season with one tournament remaining.

The team, made up of six seventh-graders and six eighth-graders, is coached by Tim Gerderos, who has been with the younger portion of the girls since they were in the fourth grade.

“These girls have put in a lot of time,” said Gerderos.

Gerderos also coaches the eighth-grade girls middle school team that finished the season with only one loss, to Sunset Middle School. The seventh-grade team also concluded their middle school season with only one notch in the loss column by way of the Powers Cruisers.

This season marked the second year of Oregon Amateur Basketball play for the Wildcats, who also participated in the seventh-grade division last year. Now that the girls have moved up to the eighth-grade division, their competition has been more challenging.

“We only had 12 hours of practice in six weeks before we went to our first tournament,” Gerderos said.

But after their lackluster performance at that tournament, the team was given just what it needed — more practice time.

The Wildcats then went on to beat four schools at the Springfield tournament — Klamath Falls, Winston, Albany and Scio — en route to their first-place finish on March 15. “We got more practice in before this last tournament and it really showed,” said Gerderos.

The Wildcat team is not run through the school, and each member of the team must pay to play due to the $300 cost per team, per tournament.  

Team members include Chelsea Baker, Katie Cornell, Taylor Gerderos, Kaitlyn Altenbach, Kelsey Hill, Shelby Jones, Emily Lack, Kaela Libby, Larissa Nasval, Bailey Richardson, Sarah Spencer and Brittney Wilson.

Oregon Amateur Basketball games are played year-round, though the Wildcats will play in their final tournament of the season this weekend in Vancouver, Wash.