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Undefeated, No. 1-ranked Gallatin girls focusing on themselves atop Class AA standings

2025 gallatin gbb
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BOZEMAN — The Gallatin girls basketball team sits atop the Class AA standings and is the only team left undefeated in the league. The Raptors have been able to rack up wins through keeping the focus on themselves.

"We’re not playing to beat Bozeman, we’re not playing to beat Great Falls High, we’re not playing to beat Billings Senior, we’re playing to beat the team that we were last week," Gallatin junior Ave Odegard said. "Every single week we’re just focusing on ourselves."

"Just staying focused on us and getting better every day," Gallatin coach Taylor Cummings said. "I think that’s where we want to gain our confidence from. We don’t want to compare ourselves to other teams, other programs, we just want to make sure that we are focusing on what we can do better."

Last year they finished fourth at state, the furthest they’d gone as a program since the school opened its doors in 2020. This year they’re hungry for even more.

"I feel like it’s been a team effort so far," Gallatin junior Jada Davis said. "Last year, taking fourth at state was kind of like, we’re able to place at state. This year, we came in with a new mentality of this year is Gallatin’s year to show who we are and that we’re not underdogs anymore."

"This is just a program that hasn’t had anything given to them, and we’ve had to fight for everything," Odegard said about the growth the program has made in its five years since the school opened its doors. "I think our seniors this year can really speak to that, after their freshman year where they didn’t have any seniors, and they were really battling."

They took a lot of motivation into the offseason, and that work in the summer and fall has paid off into this season.

"Just being able to come in here as a team every day mostly to be able to get shots up or go five-on-five and just be in shape for the season and to progressively get better," Davis said.

At their core, they truly enjoy being around one another, and that camaraderie has also led to the success this year.

"You just got a lot of girls that love basketball and are really committed to the game," Odegard said. "And then you put us together, and we care about each other so much, and we’re so close off the court that we get into practice and it’s fun. We love it."