Rob Kerr / The Bulletin Kimmer Severance, front, and, from back left, Kelsee Martin, Jena Ovens, Michaeline Malott and Kelsie Smith, are five returning starters for the Crook County basketball team this season.

PRINEVILLE — Crook County freshman Kimmer Severance might have been a revelation for some during the 2012-13 girls basketball season.

Not for her teammates.

“Ever since she was little she has always played a grade, maybe two, above her own grade,” says Kelsee Martin, a senior guard for Crook County who returns this year as team captain after missing last season with a knee injury. “She’s always been a stud.”

As a freshman, Severance, a 5-foot-8-inch post player, scored more than 18 points per game and averaged a double-double in points and rebounds.

She was also a second-team all-league selection, the lone Class 4A player and one of only two underclassmen to be named on the Intermountain Conference’s top two teams.

Severance helped Crook County overtake Ridgeview in the two-team Special District 1 and advance to a play-in game with Seaside, which it lost 65-58.

Returning 10 players with varsity experience and five starters — four from last season’s team and Martin, who was a starter in 2011-12 — the Cowgirls are hoping for more than last season’s 10-15 record. (Crook County plays much of its schedule against Class 5A schools in the IMC.)

“I am cautiously optimistic,” says Mark Malott, Crook County’s first-year head coach, who spent last season as an assistant under former coach David Johnson. “Any kind of ballclub is built in the offseason, so we don’t know what our opponents have done. We’ve had some girls who have worked very hard at what they’ve done in the offseason. So we feel good.”

Malott’s guarded optimism seems well placed.

Severance and 5-foot-11 senior Kelsie Smith appear to provide Crook County a formidable frontcourt, while senior point guard Jena Ovens joins junior Michaeline Malott and Martin in the backcourt.

More than that, there is a familiarity among the players, the majority of whom grew up playing together in youth basketball since grade school.

“We’ve all played together before and know how everybody plays and what to expect,” says Severance. “I think it’s just an advantage because we’ll know what everybody is going to do and how fast they are when they can get the ball.”

Crook County’s girls basketball program last won a state championship in 1983, a year in which it played in the old AAA class, then the state’s highest classification.

Nobody in Prineville is promising a return to those heady days.

But Martin says that the state tournament is dancing in the back of many of the Cowgirls’ minds.

“We’re all excited to get the season rolling and to find out how much we can actually do,” Martin says. “We have been pushing ourselves in practice and we feel like this year is our year to do something.”

Last year, the Cowgirls nearly advanced to state. They took a nine-point lead into halftime in their play-in game at Seaside, but they faded down the stretch.

Now Crook County seems to have the pieces in place to go further.

With so much experience, leadership should not be an issue, Malott says.

And he adds that overall the team is bigger, stronger and more athletic.

“We’re ready to take it to the next level,” Malott says. “They’ve talked about getting to Corvallis and getting to that state tournament. That’s yet to be seen if we can get that done.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7868, zhall@bendbulletin.com.