The Wolverines lost games last year by scores of 80-11, 84-26, 97-12, 81-26, 77-16, 71-20 and 70-19.

This year, though, it’s a bit of a different story.

A different vibe. A different feeling. A different atmosphere.

“There’s games that you question why you play, and you’ve put in so much work,” senior point guard and co-captain Kacie Flolo said. “I’ve been playing since the second grade and I’ve put in work every single winter into this sport, and I’ve gotten zero reward from it, it feels like sometimes.

“But then after the 24-hour rule you realize that your reward is what you learn from it. Our team is so close knit because we’re so emotionally open with each other. We cry a lot. A lot. My team reminds me why I play and the atmosphere of being with them.”

When deficits get insurmountable, the team still sees running clocks, but nowhere near a year ago.

“I definitely have questioned—not quitting—but giving up sometimes,” junior co-captain Bella Parke said. “But I always have my team to look forward to, going to see after school every day and practicing with them. Even after every loss or every game, we still have the bus rides home where we can all giggle and laugh with each other. It’s just a positive environment and that’s what keeps our whole team going.

“I definitely think the scoreboard doesn’t truly reflect on our game. I was talking to my parents, and my dad said, ‘The scoreboard never reflects on how you guys play.’ Each game we try to improve on more things...It’s the little wins like not having as many turnovers, getting more rebounds.”

The Wolverines won for the first time this season in over three years, 29-27 at home over Caldwell on Jan. 7.

“There’s a win in each game,” Flolo said. “I know we got our first win this year, but that was not our first win. Our first win was not getting beat by 30 and our second win was not getting beat by 30 by the second-best team in the league. Even though we haven’t won by score, I still feel like we’ve had wins this year.”

The goal each night stepping on the court is, quite honestly, rather simple.

“Unfortunately, it’s not to get a running clock,” Flolo admitted. “But this year it’s moved from not getting running clock to breaking 30 to getting under 10 turnovers. We value every aspect of our game stats.”

Stilling had eyes wide open when taking this position.

“That’s been part of the plan since May when I found out I got the job was being positive and finding small victories,” he said. “At Twin Falls, we lost 76-14 in the middle of December, and I sat down the last quarter of the running clock because I was pissed.”

After the game, he told Madison Rask, his assistant coach, “If I sit down again this year, I want you to kick me in the shins, or stomp on my foot and tell me to get the hell up.”

“If I’m coaching the whole game when it’s close, I should be coaching the whole game when we’re down in the fourth quarter and it’s a running clock,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. That’s part of the deal.”

By nature, Stilling says he isn’t one for yelling and screaming. He doesn’t believe in “exercise for consequence”—wind sprints after mistakes, for example.

“Someone who constantly is yelling at you or berating you eventually falls on deaf ears,” he said. “They’re not going to listen anymore.”

So he tries to be positive, “continually talking about their best effort.” He has Jan. 30 marked in his mind—the first day of the district tournament.

“No matter if we’re the seventh-place team going into districts or the first-place team...no matter where we were last year or where we are this year, we want to keep getting better.”

And they have. But there are still bumps and bruises. Stilling admitted he was frustrated last week, when the Wolverines lost at Canyon Ridge, 46-14, and home to Jerome, 68-25. He wasn’t bothered at the outcome so much as the details.

“It’s not all positive all the time,” he said. “I was pissed. We didn’t rebound. We turned the ball over. We made lazy passes. We weren’t physical. We didn’t execute our offense.”

Lessons were learned. On Saturday, the Wolverines played Minico, the top team in the conference, and CJ Latta, the league’s best player.

“To get down to the final 48 seconds before it was a running clock is huge. My best might not be as good as CJ Latta, let’s use her for an example, but Lila (Hess) shot the heck out of the ball tonight. We rebounded like crazy,” he said.

“That was a completely different team tonight than we saw Tuesday or Thursday. You could tell in the locker room; they had their chins up and were positive.”

Added Flolo, “We outrebounded this team, and we did not have the height advantage. We only had 14 turnovers, which is a huge win for us. We may have lost on a running clock, but that’s the No. 1 team in our conference and we just had one of our lowest turnover games, and we rarely outrebound teams. That’s a big win for our team.”

Said Parke, “When Jacy Thomas got that block tonight and everyone went crazy it changes the whole vibe on the bench, on the floor. You can just tell it picks us up. Each little win picks us up slowly.

“One thing about Stilling, I traveled with the ball the other night and he called me over and just gave me knuckles and said, ‘It’s fine, just shake it off.’ He doesn’t pull us out when we make mistakes. Even if we repetitively make the same mistake three times in a row, he will leave us in the game to correct ourselves. He’ll tell us what we need to do right, and I think that really helps with shaking it off.

“Our mistakes that happen over and over again, it’s nice to have our supportive coaches to bring us up and our supportive teammates. It’s also nice to have little reminders—Kayla Heitzman does a really good job of it. If we’re struggling on the court and we need help, she does little pointers to help us out.”

Wood River finishes its regular season on Jan. 27 at home on Senior Night against Buhl at 7 p.m.

“Honestly, I think Stilling has a million things going on in his mind at once,” Flolo said with a laugh. “He forgets things so fast that we forget things so fast. He moves on from mistakes so fast because he celebrates things more. He focuses on the celebrations. We’re so comfortable with our coaches. We call him out for negatives, and he fixes it. He’s very perceptive to what we say. Honestly, I think our coaches are our best friends, in a good way. He always says, ‘Try not to make the same mistake twice.’ That’s his motto.

“Our motto is, ‘It was never that serious.’ That mistake is not going to matter a week from now. We’re not going to remember what happened. I think we’ve gotten so accustomed to our playing environment. No one is mentally tough enough to play on this team. But we all adapt to it, and we become mentally tough enough to let go of our mistakes. If we hold on to our mistakes, it would be bad.”

Wood River has had its chance to win more than one game, it just hasn’t happened.

“The Buhl game we were down 10-8 at half and it eventually got away from us,” Stilling said. “We had a chance to win the Salmon game at the buzzer. The Gooding game we had a lead at half and let things slip away. Some of these kids in their varsity careers had never had a lead at halftime before.

“The fact that these kids have bought in says we’re doing something right.”