Freshman orientation with Sophia Stiles

It arrived years ago, as it had so often before. A distant rumble of thunder, originating from the Hi-Line and echoing to western Montana, to Missoula, all the way to the Lady Griz basketball offices. It heralded a familiar message: we might have another one for you.

And who was going to question or doubt it now, not after Linda Mendel, Greta Koss, Skyla Sisco, Linda Cummings and Cheryl and Juliann Keller all came out of Malta High School and picked up and carried the flag, helping the Montana women's basketball program continue its success.

Not after those M-ettes, a list that was added to last year with the arrival of Hailey Nicholson, claimed a pair of Big Sky Conference MVP awards and 10 times earned All-Big Sky accolades while wearing a Lady Griz uniform.

So when word came out of Malta that the next Lady Griz was in the pipeline, people couldn't help but pay attention. But this time it was different. The chatter, the predictions and projections, all started before Sophia Stiles had even reached high school.

"People started telling us about her when she was young, maybe a sixth or seventh grader," says second-year Lady Griz coach Shannon Schweyen, who was an assistant to Robin Selvig those years and the program's primary recruiter.

"They said, Hey, there's a really good one coming up. So we were quite aware of her."

Fast-forward more than half a decade, for now putting on hold the 11 state titles Stiles won -- nine individual championships in track and field, two on the basketball court -- and she is in her first week of full practices with the Lady Griz.

She may be slight of frame, for now, but this much is clear: she went back for second helpings of talent and athleticism. She's got the speed, the hops, the shooting stroke. It's a unique package that defies one-to-one pigeonholing.

When asked to compare Stiles' game with a former Lady Griz, Schweyen can't choose just one. She needs two to paint the most accurate picture. Fittingly, she goes with a former M-ette for one of her choices.

"I would say she's a cross between Skyla Sisco and Kenzie De Boer," Schweyen says. "Skyla could get going a million miles an hour and pull up on a dime. Sophia's very athletic and jumps and runs, and she's got a really nice pull-up jumper."

That Schweyen also goes with De Boer, whose aggressiveness and lack of fear of physical contact led her to become a 1,270-point scorer and first-team All-Big Sky Conference selection, is where the intrigue lies.

Watch Stiles at the point and you see a traditional playmaker, someone who can initiate the offense and distribute. Watch a little more: the defense gives her space and she makes it pay with a sweet outside shot. Watch a little more: Stiles gets to the rim, De Boer style, athletically, through traffic.

"She reminds me of Kenzie when she attacks the hoop," says Schweyen. "Both have a really good, quick first step, and both have the ability to slither through and around people."

A majority of the teams in the Big Sky Conference would take her today and probably put her in the starting lineup. Montana has the luxury of depth at the point. If Stiles does redshirt, which is likely, it's going to help both sides.

Because that talent and athleticism are not going to go away, even if they are hidden from public view for a winter. They'll just emerge next season in a sturdier package, making her even more dangerous.

It's really a numbers thing. McKenzie Johnston is one of the Big Sky's top point guards. Sierra Anderson is really good as well. Redshirting will allow another year to separate them from Stiles, giving her more opportunities down the road, more time to add to the growing legend of Malta when her time comes.

"She is definitely talented enough to get out there right now and play if we needed her to," says Schweyen, a line that has been repeated for dozens of Lady Griz over the years, who have redshirted their first season on campus.

"With so many guards who have time under their belts, the point guard position is pretty well taken care of for right now." And with Stiles in the program, it should be for years to come as well.

Her story isn't so much about Stiles herself, who played in four Class B state titles games, winning two, who won nine state track and field titles in the hurdles and jumps, with seven more top-three finishes, who twice was named the Gatorade Player of the Year, as it is the environments that shaped her.

She maybe wasn't born to play basketball, but what else was a girl supposed to do when her parents, raised in Malta themselves, grew up on the sport and were both coaching it in Whitewater, north of their hometown, when their fifth child arrived?

What other option did No. 5 have when sports and competition were all that mattered to the boys, Shade, Jaren and Dane, and then to Del and KayDel's first daughter, Mercedes? When bouncing balls provided the background track to the family's lives?

When Whitewater consisted of maybe two dozen kids residing in town? When the school's gym turned into clubhouse, the gathering spot to while away free time?

Because of her family, her path was mostly set before her. It was their move to Malta when Stiles was in fifth grade that fast-tracked it.

Del Fried had laid the foundation for the girls' basketball program over the course of 20 years. When the Stileses arrived in town, Terry Lindgren was the program's caretaker.

But it wasn't just girls' basketball. Sports just have an unusually high importance in the town. The school system has become a feeder system, working from the ground up.

That's what happens with consistency of leadership and when the elementary-school principal is Tad Schye. He is the school's track and field coach, father of current No. 37 for the Griz football team, Tucker Schye, and an August inductee into the Montana Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

"Our superintendent, our high school principal, our junior high principal, our elementary school principal, they are all sports-minded people who understand the importance of activities," says Nate Hammond, Stiles' basketball coach for four years at Malta High.

"All the way up, the kids are encouraged to be in sports, and the school supports them and has great facilities for them."

It was the environment Stiles entered midway through her fifth-grade year, the same winter Malta would win another girls' basketball state championship, taking down perennial thorn-in-the-side Fairfield 51-44 in Belgrade. The hook was there, and it was set.

"Once things get going and little girls are growing up seeing the older ones playing in state tournaments and getting Division I scholarships and playing on TV for the Griz, they want to play basketball too," says Hammond. "If things are going well, people want to be a part of something that's successful."

Stiles's arrival in Malta made her next in line, the player who would lead the M-ettes to even greater heights and have her name known around the state, from border to border. Of course, she needed to reach high school first.

So when Lindgren stepped down after the 2012-13 season, the year before Stiles was set to enter ninth grade, everyone wanted to know one thing: who was the new coach going to be? It was as big an item of discussion around town as was Norman Dale's arrival at Hickory High.

"It was definitely a big deal. I don't know if I had a conversation with someone before they hired a coach when they didn't ask me about it," says Stiles.

Hammond had been teaching math and coaching at Bigfork before he and his family moved to Malta so he could work on the family farm and ranch north -- actually closer to Canada than Malta -- of town. Prior to Bigfork, they'd lived in Whitewater, neighbors to the Stileses.

"We knew the family. I had babysat for them, so when I found out he was going to be the coach, I was pretty excited," says Stiles.

Hammond, who didn't move to Malta to coach, had to be convinced that the M-ettes needed him to succeed Lindgren. His first experience with his new team came the summer before Stiles' freshman year.

"Even as a freshman she was the hardest working kid out on the floor. She wasn't afraid of anybody. She could take over games on the defensive end," says Hammond. "She did a really good job pressuring the ball and making plays on defense."

Stiles, Hammond and Malta were maybe two baskets from winning four state titles. Two times the M-ettes came out on top, two times they lost tight games in the championship, the first when Stiles was a freshman, 60-55 in double overtime to Fairfield.

Stiles and Hammond won an unfair number of games together over the years, but none of them are his favorite memory of their time as player and coach.

That came at the 2015 Class B tournament in Great Falls. Forsyth dominated Plains by 21 in one quarterfinal. In the other quarterfinal on that side of the bracket, Malta downed Columbus by 15.

Early in the semifinal in what was the de facto championship game, Stiles had to come off the floor after suffering an ankle injury.

"That ankle was black and blue, and it was big," says Hammond. "I didn't think she would be able to play again, but she came back after five minutes. Had it all taped up and said, 'I'm ready to go.' "

Malta would win 44-42, then one night later defeat Colstrip 46-35.

"She really toughed it out that game," adds Hammond. "That's the memory that stands out."

That was about the time most high school players who have college potential start seeking out ways to get themselves noticed. But after commuting to Great Falls for a travel team in middle school, and getting worn out on the idea, Stiles never again pursued it.

Some of her Malta teammates were college-bound, which means she didn't lack for competition. And she had 24-hour access to the old high school gym, the only thing that remained after the 1996 fire that destroyed the former school. She would turn herself into a Division I player.

"I thought about how (playing on an AAU team) would make me a better player, but there were good players in Malta. And if I went to the gym on my own, I'd be just as good if not better," she said, knowing that AAU is as much about exposure as it is an advanced level of competition.

"I always knew I wanted to stay in Montana anyway (for college). I didn't want to be driving to Great Falls three hours every weekend just to go to practice."

With Stiles and Nicholson playing together for the final time as M-ettes, Malta won the 2016 state title by two points over Fairfield. Last March, in Stiles' senior year, Fairfield won the title over Malta, 34-33.

Schweyen would prefer all her recruits seek out the highest level of competition they can find prior to their arrival at Montana. But in the case of Stiles, the coach was fine keeping her diamond in the rough hidden from view for as long as possible.

She knows if Stiles had been seen by more programs, she might be in the Pac-12 right now.

"It was always kind of a catch-22. We were curious to see her play surrounded by some really good kids, but at the same time we didn't want a bunch of other people to see her. She would have stood out, and all of a sudden you're opening a door," says Schweyen.

"All of a sudden there would have been a bunch more schools we would have been competing against while recruiting her. In the end it all turned out well."

In track and field, Stiles won the state triple jump title as a freshman. She would sweep the long and triple jumps the next three years and add in a victory in the 300-meter hurdles as a junior and high jump as a senior.

Oh, and she also ran cross country in the fall up until her senior year. "It was just kind of expected we'd do some type of sport for every season," she says. She placed seventh at the state meet as a freshman, 14th as a sophomore, 19th as a junior.

And now she's at Montana, the next in the line of M-ettes. Dorm living has not been a problem, not for someone who at one time lived in a two-bedroom house that was home to 15 people. Such is the life of a child whose parents routinely expanded the size of their family to include foster kids.

"My mom, she's really into helping people," Stiles says. "She thinks if she has something to offer someone else to make their life better, she'll do it."

Being up for early-morning practices isn't really her thing, but she'll survive. Just as she will sitting out a year while redshirting, if that indeed comes to pass. But it will be hard, as it is for anyone who craves competition and the winning and losing that results from being tested.

Coaches can preach all they want about redshirts making practices their games, but when it's 6:30 a.m., it's cold and dark outside and there is no smell of freshly made popcorn in the air or band warming up, or even anyone else in the building, that can be tough to do, even for the most motivated.

"I definitely see how beneficial it would be to redshirt. I could get a lot stronger and a lot better and learn the plays, but it's still hard to think you're going to go all that time with no game," she says.

There is a Malta history that should soften the blow. Koss and Sisco both redshirted their first seasons. All it did for Koss was get her the 1996 Big Sky MVP award. Sisco won the honor two years later.

Cummings, Stiles' cousin, didn't redshirt. Sure, she was voted All-Big Sky three times but never the MVP. See? That extra season means something. It's the difference between a Malta player being really good and really, really good.

Once again this winter all eyes in Malta will be turned toward Missoula when the Lady Griz are playing. They keep sending their girls to Montana, and they've continued to be rewarded, the players and town alike. Hammond and everyone else in town know Stiles is in good hands.

"They do a good job with Montana kids. Especially Malta kids," he says. "There has been a ton of them that have gone through there. Those of us back in Malta know Sophia's going to be taken care of pretty well."

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