Athlete of the Week

(Cut Bank) – It’s rare but it happens, both our male and female Athletes of the Week come from Cut Bank where the Cut Bank Wrestlers won their home invitational for the 1st time in years and where the girls Basketball team picked up a hard-fought conference win over Choteau.

Cut Bank ran off 10 straight points to start the 2nd half against Choteau Saturday and took the lead for the 1st time in the game on this shot.

Q: “a time out here” ………………News Audio………………..Waller PBP

The lead did change hands several times in the 2nd half but Cut Bank held on to win 54-52. Jackie Waller did lead the Wolves in scoring with 18-points but her defense may have been even bigger. She had 6 rebounds and 6 steals and at just 5’2” she is the Lady Wolves leading rebounder so far this season.

Two nights earlier, Waller had 6 points, 5 rebounds and 4 steals against Browning. With great quickness and what appears to me to be a never slow down attitude she’s averaging 10-points, 5 rebounds and 4-steals per game.

On the Wrestling mats, Cut Bank had 5 wrestlers in Championship matches and all 5 won to help Cut Bank win the team title. As you can imagine, that makes selection of an Athlete of the Week a hard choice. Head Coach Cody Fetters told us they weren’t convinced that 3 of those 5 would win in the final round, so they all came thru big time. With that said the nomination goes to So. Kanon Branch at 138 pounds.

Branch was dominant in his Championship match winning 8-2 and turned in his best performance of the season. The young wrestler has taken on a whole new attitude at the start of the year according to Coach Fetters and “he wrestled smart.” There’s still room for improvement but Kanon appears ready to take on those challenges and see what happens.

Congratulations to our KSEN/K96 – Bozeman Trophy Athletes of the Week, Sr. Jackie Waller of Cut Bank and So. Kanon Branch of Cut Bank. The Athlete of the Week is sponsored locally by McDonald’s in Cut bank. McDonald’s honors our Athletes with two free value meals each.

KSEN encourages all fans, parents and coaches to nominate Athletes of the Week when you believe that have had an above average performance. E-mail markdaniels@townsquaremedia.com.