Freshman Tyler Lapierre knows the hardships of playing a hard game, but here at C.M. Russell High School, it’s all been surreal.

“I hit hard,” Lapierre said.

He played his first football season at CMR this year, and is in the midst of an intramural basketball season.

The season was long and hard for Lapierre, but fun along the way.

“It went OK,” he said.

He played defensive back for Coach Cislo on the freshman team this past season, but he admits he likes to play basketball more.

Age seven was the first time Lapierre began to play basketball semi-competitively. He played at the Heisey Gym in a small league for a few years before moving on to a young traveling team.

Three years after beginning to play, he joined a team known as the Great Falls Orange, a 10-year-old traveling basketball team coached by Josh Garner and Jason Mitchell.

Although they had only four plays, the young Lapierre learned a lot from it. His teammates included the likes of fellow freshmen Lane Jensen, Jordan Smith, and Brandon Lefebre.

“We were on a 12-game losing streak at one point. We were a C team in an A league. Coach expected a lot out of us,” he said.

The practices were held at the police station, being that both of the coaches are police officers. He said it was always interesting, especially when one of the kids got into an argument with a coach and was chased around the station. He was left out in the snow for a few minutes before being let back in to resume practice.

Lapierre played point guard for his middle school teams, scoring an average of eight points per game. His high scoring game was 18 points.

“I was drilling threes,” he said.

This basketball season was cut short when he was cut from the freshman team.

“I was sort of irritated because I was told I wasn’t physically mature enough yet. I’ll wear a fake beard next year,” he said.

Lapierre is playing intramural basketball currently, and he expects to be in the championship.