You can’t keep these Lady Cats down, no matter how many key players you remove from Superior’s lineup.

Playing through a series of misfortunes late this season, including the loss of leading scorer Josie Crabb before the tournament began and the subsequent loss of senior guard Maggie Howarth during the tourney, coach Jeff Schultz’s gritty Lady Cats fought their way to second place in the District 14C tournament in Polson last week.

As the No. 2 seed from 14C, the Cats will play Shields Valley in the first round of the Western C divisional tournament at the Maroon Activity Center in Butte at noon Thursday. The top two Western C teams then move on to the State C tournament in Missoula March 12-14.

Schultz and his Lady Cats would love to be one of those two teams but the question of how many players Superior can lose and still be effective lingers. “We don’t want to find out how many players we can lose, we have already lost enough,” he said. “I just want to compliment the girls we do have for the way we played in Polson last week.

“I couldn’t be more proud,” he said. “In spite of our injuries and having kids out, the girls played very gritty basketball, like they wanted it, no matter who was on the floor at any given time.”

The Lady Cats began their gritty journey through the 14C tourney with a 61-7 win over Noxon Thursday, kept the ball rolling with a tough 59-51 win over Hot Springs in the semifinals Friday, and completed it with yet another gritty effort, a 44-35 loss to Charlo in the championship in spite of missing two starters.

What’s more, another starter senior Makenzie Reum went down briefly with an ankle injury during the championship game with Charlo, although she was able to return to the game later.

Ava White led Superior scoring against Charlo with 13 points, Maryisa Swope added sis points, Reum five, Lily Jasper three, Nicole Shope two and Perri Jasper one.

Maizey McDonald led Charlo with 15 points and Brielle Zempel added 14.

Against Hot Springs, the Cats built a 25-7 lead after one quarter and managed to hold off the Savage Heat the rest of the way, in spite of vanishing players and tiring bodies.

White again led the Lady Cats with 18 points, Swope scored 11, Reum and Lily Jasper nine apiece, Howarth seven before being injured, and Perri Jasper five.

Five Lady Cats scored in double figures in the opening round win over Noxon Thursday. Swope led the winners with 16 points, Lily Jasper scored 12, White, Howarth and Reum 10 each and Kaydi Erickson two.

Schultz can’t stress enough how impressed with his girls he is. “These girls are fighters, they just keep playing hard no matter what happens,” he said. “It’s the next girl up attitude, if one goes down the next one steps up, and this team has been living up to that lately.”