The Lady Penguins of 1994

The 1994 and 1995 Whitewater Lady Penguin teams reached the State C Championship games in both years, but fell short, taking home second place.

The 2019 basketball season marks 25 years since the 1994 state contending team, and the PCN caught up with Krystal (Simonson) Olson now of Billings, and Ella (Anderson) Yeadon who currently lives in Malta. Both Olson and Yeadon were named to the Class C All-Conference team that year.

The team had four athletes named on the All-State selection list including first-teamers Simonson and Emma Simanton (a transfer from Malta). Leslie Nelson and Rebecca Clark were named as second-teamers.

The 1994 team would fall to one of the first Co-ops to reach the State Title game in Class C, the Kremlin-Gildford KouGars. The score of that game was 45-40.

"I still despise hearing that name," Olson said of K-G with a giggle.

Back in 1994, Class C Basketball boasted 206 teams(only 83 in 2019), making the odds of reaching the State Championship tougher, and with a class of 36 high schoolers, it was nearly all hands on deck for Penguin and Lady Penguin basketball.

"It wasn't easy to get there, and it took every girl we had in the whole school to make up our team," Olson said. "We were pretty proud of that; to get to the state tournament and championship game with every girl that we had in the school. That's what it took."

Nine of the 12 athletes on the Whitewater team were related as cousins or sisters. All members of the 94 team were Aimee Hammond, April Higgins, Ashley Hammond, Haley Hammond, Wendy Hill, Esther Gertge, Marisa Green, April Simonson, Billie Sky Haynes, Leslie Nelson, Krystal Simonson, Ella Anderson, Janel Simonson, Head Coach Mike Conroy, Assistant Coach Butch Mayer, and Assistant Coach Jennifer McGlothen.

The Penguin brand of basketball displayed a culture of pride and resiliency, which was evident through the 1993, 1994, and 1995 seasons. The team had only lost seven games during that span while winning 72. The team was led by legendary coach Mike Conroy, who passed away in 2007.

"He was a special guy and a huge part of our lives," Yeadon said of Coach Conroy.

Olson mentioned that she wouldn't change anything about her time with Whitewater, because of the love and joy that the time had under Coach Conroy.

"We had so much fun," Olson said. "We laughed all of the time. Winning is important and fun too but it didn't matter if it was practice or a game or state basketball, we always laughed. There was so much love."

Up until their loss to the Kougars, The Penguins made a habit of pressuring opposing teams into making mistakes that they would capitalize on. The Penguins averaged 75 points and game while holding opponents to 39.

"Our game really revolved around just running the ball, pushing it up the court and getting fastbreak points," Olson said. "That's what was so fun about playing basketball is we really just learned to play with each other."

The teammates learned each others' tendencies and strengths by letting each other shoot open layups or open threes during the fastbreak, not so much focusing on set offense.

To reach the championship game, Whitewater defeated Winifred 54-49 in the semi-finals, and Seeley-Swan 60-56 in the opening round.

During the championship game, Olson, who played as a combo guard-forward, led the team in scoring, with 14 points. Yeadon, a sharpshooting guard, netted 14. Janel Anderson had eight points, Emma Simanton and Nelson had four each and Clark added two.

K-G on the other side was led by another cousin to several Whitewater athletes, Courtnee Dees who was named the tournament's MVP. Dees scored 20 points in the championship and was 6-of-9 from the arc.

One year prior, the Penguins went 25-2, and took home the third-place trophy, along with the Divisional, and District Trophies.

The 1994 team lost a lot of talent to graduation including Serena Green, Kerrie Simonson, and Mandy Olson. Whitewater wasn't favored to go to state, let alone make it to the title game. Yeadon remembered sitting in the North 40 after a basketball game, listening to the wise words of her Grandpa Hammond and uncle Swede Olson.

"I remember them telling us, 'you girls are going to have to work hard in the off-season and this is going to be a learning year for you guys," she recalled. "You are going to have to figure out who is going to be your leader. Work together and the next year you are going to have a really good shot.'"

Yeadon said that "the talk" was all the team needed.

"I remember Krystal, Janel, and myself saying that is not the way it is going to be," Yeadon said.

The team decided that they would go to camps during that summer with Coach Conroy to improve their game. The camps and tournaments featured team-building exercises and teams from all over the state, including teams from Class AA, A, and B.

The Whitewater team, now under a coop with Saco and Hinsdale as the North Country Mavericks, was locked into a rivalry with Opheim, who for the past several years has been under a cooperative agreement with Nashua.

"We would go back and forth with Opheim," Yeadon said. "They had a really tough team all throughout my four years of high school. It was always a battle with the Vikings. They had a lot of talent."

Despite losing the State Championship, reaching the 1994 State C Championship game was unchartered waters for the Whitewater Penguins. Whitewater High School would eventually join with Saco under a cooperative agreement as the Saco-Whitewater Panthers. Saco-Whitewater would win the title in 2011 in a 38-37 thriller over Harlowton-Ryegate.

Being juniors during the 1994 season, Yeadon and Olson both helped their team get to the State C championship in 1995, but that year the team fell 60-40 to Winifred.

After Yeadon graduated from Whitewater High School in 1996, she went on to play basketball at Northwest Community College in Powell, Wyo. After finishing at Northwest, Yeadon moved to Billings. Yeadon lives in Malta with her children Eva and Anderson. Her oldest son Rhett graduated from Malta in 2019. She works as a Real Estate Broker, a position she earned in 2017.

Olson would also graduate in 1996 and then attend Montana State University Billings for her first year of college. After taking a year off from basketball Olson went on to play for Rocky Mountain College in Billings. During that time Olson had the chance to reunite and play ball with cousins Ashley (Hammond) Stuart, Jada (Simonson) Bantz of Fergus High, and Kerrie (Simonson) Hanson. She married Bryce Olson of Malta, and the couple has been married for 19 years. The couple has been raising their children in Billings. Olson has been working in Marketing for the past 19 years.