La Pine High basketball teammates Kassi Conditt (left) and Maria Ramirez have a friendly competition during a one-on-one drill at practice on Tuesday.

LA PINE — Before Kim Beer came to La Pine High School, the Hawks’ girls basketball program was in a state of disrepair.

When Beer took over at the start of the 2005-06 school year, La Pine was coming off a three-year stretch in which the Hawks had won just four games while losing 64.

“During that first year, in one of the first games, I gave a pregame talk trying to build up spirit,” Beer recalls. “At the end of the speech, I said, ”Aren’t we proud to be Hawks?’ The girls’ response was, ‘No. We don’t want to be Hawks.’”

But that was three seasons ago.

Tonight, the Hawks (22-3 overall) play Philomath in the first round of the Class 4A state tournament.

After 16 consecutive losing seasons, La Pine posted its first winning record during the 2006-07 campaign, going 17-10 in Beer’s second year. Last season the Hawks again won 17 games, setting the table for this year’s run to the state tournament.

“That first year we had a group of freshmen that were very excited about basketball,” Beer says, referring to his four seniors this season — Maria Ramirez, Megan Glenn, Amanda Blankenship and Cassie Schulz — who helped resurrect La Pine’s girls program. “It’s kind of a sentimental group. They came here at the same time as me.”

A fourth-year starter, Ramirez has led the Hawks from her point-guard position since her first year in high school. After being thrown into the fire her freshman season — when La Pine went 3-20 — Ramirez as a sophomore led the Hawks to their first postseason appearance in 17 years.

“At first it was like, “Sweet, we’re on varsity as freshmen,” Ramirez says about joining Blankenship on the varsity early in their high school careers. “But actually it was kind of terrifying.”

Last season La Pine just missed out on the state playoffs, falling to Marist of Eugene in the Sky-Em League playoffs. This year Ramirez, who averages 11 points, eight assists, six rebounds and five steals a game, helped push the Hawks into the state tournament for the first time since 1990.

“She’s important to us in so many ways,” Beer says about Ramirez, who posted eight points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds in La Pine’s 54-50 second-round road playoff victory over Henley last Saturday night in Klamath Falls. “She gets the whole team in the game.”

Ramirez’s stat line is impressive, but the Hawks’ are much more than a one-player show. Kassi Conditt (17), Blankenship (9.5) and Glenn (8.6) all average eight points or more for La Pine, which posts 54.2 points per game, the third-best mark in 4A.

“This has been our goal since our freshman year,” says Blankenship, who also averages five rebounds and 3.6 steals a game for the Hawks. “We (seniors) have been playing basketball together since we were sixth-graders.”

While the Class of 2009 has been instrumental in turning around the girls basketball scene in La Pine, the evolution of Conditt, a junior, has helped turn the Hawks from playoff contenders to potential state placers. A 6-foot-1-inch post, Conditt has averaged 17 points, 10 rebounds and 1.6 blocks this season after playing on La Pine’s junior varsity II team two years ago.

“Her freshman year I told her to come spend some time with me in the gym,” Beer says about Conditt, who along with Ramirez has been an all-Sky-Em first-team selection the past two seasons. “She came and worked with me, worked on her post moves, and now she’s one of the best posts in the state in 4A.”

Conditt came up huge in the Hawks’ playoff win against Henley, scoring a game-high 21 points, including a put-back basket with seven seconds left in the fourth quarter that sealed the 54-50 victory.

“She makes it so much easier for us,” Ramirez says about Conditt. “She’s a big rebounder, a big scorer. No one in our league knows how to guard her.”

In addition to the development of Conditt and this year’s senior class, the Hawks tested themselves early in nonconference games against some of the best teams east of the Cascades. Before the winter break, La Pine defeated Burns, which last weekend won the 3A state championship; Summit, a team that advanced to the 5A state tournament; and Bend High, a team that made it to the second round of the 5A state playoffs.

“The preseason was hard but good,” says Ramirez, whose team cruised to a 10-2 record before the start of league play last season against a combination of 1A, 2A and 3A schools. “Last year (our nonconference schedule) was easy. This year you look back and see we played a state champion (Burns).

“You see what some of those teams have accomplished and you have more belief in what we can be.”

Next up for La Pine girls basketball

What: Class 4A girls state basketball tournament

Who: La Pine Hawks (22-3) vs. Philomath Warriors (17-7)

When: Today, 8:15 p.m.

Where: Oregon State University’s Gill Coliseum, Corvallis

Notes: Philomath finished second in the Val-Co League this season with a 10-2 record. La Pine was the runner-up in the Sky-Em League with a 10-2 mark. … The Warriors won a pair of close games to advance to Corvallis. Philomath defeated North Bend 56-53 in overtime in the first round of the state playoffs before beating Seaside 39-37 on the road in the second round. … This is the first time the Hawks have made the state tournament at the 4A level. La Pine’s last state tournament appearance was in 1990, when the Hawks lost in the first round of the 16-team Class A tournament. … La Pine and Philomath have played two common opponents this season, Marist and Junction City. The Hawks defeated both Marist and Junction City twice this season, while the Warriors lost to Marist 65-26 and were beaten by Junction City 47-30. … La Pine has advanced to the state semifinals only once in school history. In 1989 the Hawks went 25-0 and won the Class A state tournament. … Philomath has won three girls basketball state championships. The Warriors won the Class AA title in 1986 and 1987 and the 3A championship in 2000. More recently, Philomath placed second at the 3A tournament in 2006.