No one can accuse Westby High School girls basketball coach Brian Huebner of not living in the moment.
Huebner knows his program is in the midst of its most successful era in school history, and he is fully appreciative of the people who deserve the credit.
Along with that comes a touch of sadness. Westby has five seniors who have been with Huebner since seventh grade.
Together, they helped take Westby to its first Coulee Conference title and WIAA Division 4 state tournament appearance last season. Westby leads the conference again at the halfway point of the season.
"It's unbelievable," Huebner said. "It's kind of starting to hit me now that we're less than a month away from the season starting to come to an end, whatever might happen in the playoffs. I coached these seniors in seventh grade. It will be very, very hard to say goodbye."
Westby has a lot of business to take care of first. The Norsemen (12-1, 6-0 Coulee), ranked ninth in Division 3, play Arcadia (10-3, 5-1) at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the first girls game of the Coulee Classic at the La Crosse Center.
"We're going into February trying to play our best basketball," Huebner said. "We know we're going to get everybody's best game every night, and we expect nothing but that from Arcadia."
Just as it did last season, Westby is playing high-octane defense. In Tuesday's 45-29 win at West Salem, the Norsemen pressed and trapped from the opening minutes, causing seven first-quarter turnovers that helped play a role in a 21-4 run.
The Norsemen are allowing an average of 27.1 points per game this season - eight fewer than the state tournament team - and the best part for Huebner is that each of his players has bought into the swarming defensive mentality.
"We try to go in there and set the tone," senior Maggi Bishop said.
Said Huebner: "We believe in our defense so much. These girls have played together for so long and they know each other's tendencies so well that if we need to make a stop or make a run, the confidence is there."
Westby's leading scorer is junior guard Abby Midtlien (11.4 points per game). But the Norsemen's offense really is all about balance.
For example, Midtlien got into early foul trouble in the West Salem game and missed long stretches in the first half. No problem. Alyssa Clemment and Courtney Nelson stepped up with 3-pointers in the first quarter, and Bishop provided 10 of her 12 points in the second half.
"I've talked about this with them, that they are really unique in that on any given night they can kind of change if they need to," Huebner said. "There have been occasions where they've been able to put up 60, 70 points, and when we lost to Richland Center it was 33-29, a slugfest. They're the kind of team that can do anything."
