Central Girls to host undefeated Dillon Beavers, “Cancer Schmancer” night on Thursday

It's not going to be an easy task.  The Butte Central Maroons, coming off a pair of close if not heartbreaking losses to Anaconda and Stevensville, will be hosting the conference-leading and undefeated Dillon Beavers Thursday at the Maroon Activities Center.

But let's not count the Maroons out just yet.  Although the tears are not yet dry from the overtime loss suffered at home to Stevensville last Saturday, the ink is still not dry from entering Brooke Badovinac's name into the school's record books with her remarkable 42-point performance.  Badovinac leads the state in scoring with an average of 21.1 points per game and also has 24 steals on the season.  Teammate Mollie Drew adds 5.9 points per game to go with 4.3 rebounds and the team is loaded with young talent that according to Coach Quinn Carter "shows improvement every game."  The Beavers are going to require them to bring their "A" game.

Dillon brings a team that is balanced on offense and ferocious on defense.  The Beavers have won their first 10 games of the season, most in convincing fashion. Halle Fitzgerald is 5th in the Southwest A in scoring with a 14 points-per-game average and leads the conference with 45 steals.  Kylie Konen joins Fitzgerald with a double-digit scoring average with 10.1 points per game but in the paint is where she does most of her damage with an amazing 44 blocked shots on the year.  Sydney Petersen adds a solid 9.2 points-per-game along with 28 steals on the year and 26 assists.

The girls game will be a doubleheader with the boys and will start at 6pm.  The boys will start at approximately 7:30. Thursday has been designated as "Cancer Schmancer" night in memory of Mairissa Peoples, the older sister of Coach Carter who passed away a decade ago after a heroic battle with cancer.  Fans are asked to show their support by wearing pink to the event.  Pink "Never Give Up" t-shirts, longsleeves and hoodies are available at Universal Athletics through Thursday afternoon and will also be available for purchase at the MAC on Thursday evening.  Proceeds from the sales will go to the "Mairissa's Way" faculty endowment fund, to the St. James Cancer Center and the Northwest Sarcoma Foundation in memory of Mairissa.