KALISPELL — Flathead High School’s Dirk Johnsurd spent six seasons as the assistant coach for the boy's basketball team, as well as a season coaching the girl's team. But last year was the first time he received the title of head coach.
"I just love Flathead High School and I love our kids. So I was very excited to be with these guys every day," said Johnsrud.
"Actually my freshman year I got to play some JV and he was the JV coach at the time. So we had some chemistry going into his first year as head coach. So we've kind of grown been getting better together," senior Joston Cripe said.
Usually, they say you won’t start seeing a new head coach footprints on the team until they have a couple of seasons under their belt, but for Johnsrud, he is impacting the team culture already.
"I feel like the biggest thing he has changed is that we not me, because he's he's always saying we not me, it's always about the team," senior Gavin Chouinard said.
"I mean, it's so much fun to play. I've never had this much fun playing basketball in my career," added Luca Zoeller.
And the Braves are confident with the chemistry they have established as well as their star player returning, that they can turn it around this season.
"So and especially with Joston Cripe coming back, I think that our chemistry is just a lot better," said Chouinard.
"We had a lot of turnovers me myself I am going to clean that up, you know I think our shooting needs to get a lot better. We have been working on that getting a lot of shots up at practice, so that is one thing that is going to improve a lot this year," Cripe added.
