The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — The excitement of it all hasn’t escaped Madison George.

She’s a freshman who is not just starting on the Soroco High School girls basketball team but excelling.

“Yeah, I’m surprised,” she said, resting at home during the two-week holiday break. “Why? Well, because I’m a freshman. It’s pretty fun to be playing out there with seniors.”

Seven games into her first high school season, George has proven she can line up shoulder to shoulder with those seniors and about anyone else she faces.

She’s second on the team in scoring with 11 points per game and has averaged three assists.

George said she first realized she would play such a large role midway through the first junior varsity game of the season.

“Halfway through the JV game, they pulled me out and told me I couldn’t play any more,” George said. “They told me I was starting varsity. I was pretty excited.”

The early promotion may have caught George off guard. Those who had seen her aggressive style and fast feet reacted differently, however.

“It doesn’t surprise me at all what this young lady can do,” senior Sarajane Rossi said. “She’s quite the athlete. She’s worked really hard every day in practice, and she’s a hustler.”

The core of George’s strength is that hustle and athleticism. She’s an avid rodeo competitor and one of the top girls in the state with a rope, a passion that likely will prevent her from participating in any Soroco sport besides basketball.

On the court, however, she’s combined her natural athleticism with an unusually astute floor vision. She’s manned the point guard position for much of the season’s first seven games and picks up her points with quick and aggressive drives to the basket.

“She handles the ball really well for a freshman, and she sees the floor really well,” Soroco coach David Bruner said. “She has so quick a first step, she can blow by someone and get a good open look before anyone else can come over to help on defense.”

The points have come mostly on those quick drives. George’s longer shots, meanwhile, are a work in progress. She can get hot from beyond the 3-point arc, but she still is learning to shoot more consistently with proper form.

She said she’s spent much of her break working on free throws.

She also needs to cut down on turnovers. She’s averaging nearly seven a game, turning the ball over with errant passes while repeatedly being whistled for carrying the ball.

It’s still all a little new. Without a youth basketball league in South Routt County, George is playing in just her third season of organized basketball.

“It takes repetition. Lots of repetition,” Bruner said about the path to shooting improvement. “It takes a lot of shots to be a good shooter. She just hasn’t shot the ball that much.”

Developing a clean, accurate shot is even more important in Bruner’s offense. He has made a major effort to increase the number of shots his team puts up in his first year coaching the team. The results so far have been mixed. Playing with a young squad — freshman twins Lindsay and Shelby Miles have logged big minutes along with George — Soroco is 3-4.

With so many young players and a new shot-heavy philosophy, Bruner said the team only can improve after the break.

The same goes for his young and quickly developing point guard.

“I didn’t know she’d have such an impact this year,” Bruner said. “She’s a competitor, and she gets after it. I don’t think people realize what kind of player she could be.”