Lady Griz sign four

The Montana women's basketball program, zigging while so many college teams are zagging, signed four prep players to scholarship contracts recently.

It's all part of first-year coach Nate Harris's vision and intention to build the Lady Griz from the foundation of a strong freshman class year after year, in an era of college basketball when transfers and offseason player movement is becoming the larger storyline.

"If you can get really good players, I don't know why you wouldn't want to have them for four years. If they can help us compete and help us be good, we want them in our program for as long as possible," he said.

"I feel like all four of these young ladies possess either an elite skill or collections of skills that is going to help them compete to make us better next year."

Two of Harris's new players will arrive from the state of Montana, Avory DeCoite, a 5-foot-7 guard from Missoula (Big Sky HS), and Kamryn Reinker, a 5-foot-11 wing from Billings (Billings Central Catholic HS).

Also signing scholarship contracts were Kate Holmquist, a 5-foot-7 guard from Maple Grove, Minn. (Maple Grove HS) and Hayden Kaut, a 6-foot-2 forward from Napavine, Wash. (Napavine HS).

Holmquist and DeCoite have national championships in their family histories.

Holmquist's mom, the former Jaime Pudenz, won NCAA Division II women's basketball national championships at North Dakota in 1997, '98 and '99 and was inducted into the UND Letterwinners Association Hall of Fame in 2016.

DeCoite's dad, Dave, was on Montana's 2001 national championship football team and was a first-team All-Big Sky safety as a senior.

"You have this mom with a storied career, Avory has a dad who was a national champion at Montana. There is a lineage of success," said Harris.

Kaut's late mother, Kathleen Nygaard-Kaut, was inducted into the Eastern Washington Athletics Hall of Fame in 2015.

Holmquist is coming off a year to remember, helping Maple Grove to a 24-2 regular season and a runner-up finish at the Minnesota Class AAAA state tournament, where she was voted to the All-Tournament team.

The Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association All-State selection spent the spring and summer getting recognition at just about every stop her club team, Minnesota Fury, made.

"Kate is more of an offensive point guard. She has some Mack Konig to her game. She doesn't have Mack's size but she is going to really push the tempo," said Harris.

"She is very gifted offensively. She is just a special offensive player who I think can be the engine on a really good offensive team."

DeCoite? Let's just say she's a reflection of her dad, who won the Montana football team's Doug Betters Golden Helmet Award for being the Grizzlies' best tackler and hardest hitter as a junior and senior.

"On the flipside of Kate, Avory is a much more defensive-minded kid," said Harris. "She is going to pick the ball up and turn you and make you work for 94 feet, and she is never going to let up and is never going to surrender.

"She will be the hardest-working kid on almost every basketball floor she steps on."

Reinker is a multiple-time, multiple-sport state champion at Billings Central, winning hardware in both basketball and volleyball.

"Kam is a versatile wing, like a Sammy Fatkin, capable of doing a lot of different things all over the floor," said Harris.

"She is a better rebounder than a lot of wings we've had in our program. Her versatility and how physical she is and rugged she is will make her a really productive player."

Kaut fits Harris's blueprint perfectly for his current team and his teams of the future, a long 6-foot-2 forward who can space the floor on the offensive end and guard a variety of type of players on the defensive end.

Kaut won a Washington Class 2B state title as a sophomore. Napavine placed third at last season's 2B state tournament.

"She is exactly what we're looking for in a forward," said Harris. "She can really shoot it, so she is going to stretch the floor offensively. She is going to make you guard the whole floor.

"On the defensive end, she is long enough and active enough that she can guard just about anyone. Similar to Dani (Bartsch) when Dani was really shooting it well, kind of in that realm."

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