Elite athletic intangibles shined bright within Peyton Ferris at a young age. Her toughness and unrelenting will to win have been on full display for as long as those close to her can remember, whether Ferris was competing on the baseball diamond with the boys or playing pick-up basketball with Montana Western women as a teenager.
For those intangibles to translate into the dominant Division I athlete she is today, the Montana State fifth-year senior had to adjust a few tangible parts of her athletic existence, both physically and mentally.
Early on in her career, the Twin Bridges native was a 5-foot-9 athlete without a position, floating through the struggles of adjusting from Class C to the Big Sky Conference. Ferris battled physical injuries — her surgically repaired ACL ailed her so much, she was forced to redshirt during her second season in Bozeman — and the mental demons of doubt that accompanied going from the Montana Gatorade Player of the Year as a prep senior to shooting 30 percent her first college season.
The high academic achiever has never struggled in the classroom. In fact, during her redshirt year, she realized she was plowing through her sociology and criminology classes at such a rapid pace, she would finish her undergraduate degree in two and a half years. During the first year of her life not spent competing, Ferris decided to begin studying psychology, a major that would pay personal dividends later on.
During that year away, Ferris switched positions, moving from guard to power forward. She learned under Rachel Semansky, an All-Big Sky performer from Class C Highwood who shares similar characteristics to Ferris: tough, hard-working and grounded. And during the year off, Ferris learned how to take care of her body, from communicating with coaches to mitigate practice time to maximizing the training resources provided by MSU to learning how to stay healthy despite hitting the floor as much as any player in college hoops.
Since Ferris has reemerged a redshirt year, she has taken the Big Sky Conference by storm. Ferris earned the league’s Top Reserve honor each of the last two seasons. She entered her fifth and final season at MSU as the league’s preseason MVP and has not disappointed. She is averaging 17.6 points per game on 49.1 percent shooting and is grabbing 7.1 rebounds per game as the Bobcats chase a second straight regular-season Big Sky title. The MSU women host rival Montana on Saturday afternoon in the first of three straight home games to finish the regular season.
The stellar finale is the perfect convergence of Ferris’ honed mentality, small-town roots and fierce competitiveness.
“She has been the starting point the last couple of years as far as the identity of this team being known for our selflessness,” Montana State head coach Tricia Binford said. “She has really helped create a culture in this program about doing your part for the greater good of the team and being willing to do whatever is asked.”
Ferris grew up on a ranch between Twin Bridges and Dillon in picturesque Madison County. She went to elementary school in Sheridan but as she and her brother Jason — now a freshman linebacker at Montana Western — grew older, their parents Tom and Bobette Ferris eventually told the siblings they had to catch the bus to Twin.
In fifth grade, the family gave up ranching to start a fencing business that Tom still runs today. He also hauls cattle around Southwest Montana. Even though living on a ranch was only her reality for the first half of her life, being surrounded by an agricultural lifestyle in a small town has an influence on Ferris to this day.
“It’s influenced me to work for everything,” the 23-year-old said. “You grow up with friends on ranches, your family is on a ranch. If you don’t do something, you are not successful. If you don’t feed your horse, it dies. You are out on a cattle drive, it starts raining, there is nothing you can do about it. It prepares you for getting through adverse situations, working as hard as you can and not doing anything half effort.”
Rob Lott, Ferris’ high school basketball coach at Class C Twin Bridges, noticed his pupil’s competitiveness and hard-nosed attitude when she was 11 or 12 years old when Ferris was a player on his son Tyler’s all-star baseball team.
“She wasn’t just on the team, she was our best pitcher,” Lott said. “She could throw it hard. She was a great hitter. She made the all-star team. She’s just such a good athlete, very competitive and that was true even back then. I knew this was coming way before she even got into high school.”
Beginning in seventh grade, Ferris would hitch a ride to Dillon to jump into as many open gyms at Montana Western as she could. She remembers being coached by former Western player Jamie Lake and hoping to someday play at Lake’s level. She also remembers playing with boys as often as possible to improve her toughness.
In middle school, Ferris played for her mom at Sheridan. She grew up watching men’s college basketball and she frequently tried to implement the moves she saw on television into games. It’s the roots of her unorthodox, pounding style that almost always ends with finesse finishes off the glass.
“My mom was the middle school coach and sometimes she would want to kill me,” Ferris said with a smile. “She would always say, ‘Just shoot the basketball, make the layup, make the basket, don’t try to be fancy.’ That was good because it taught me the fundamentals. But in high school, I still practiced some of those things on my own and applied them in games. Sometimes, I’ll be messing around in the gym and miss a move 10 out of the 15 times I try it but then in a game, it will just happen and go in.”
When Ferris reached driving age, her parents gave her the choice to go to Dillon or to stick in Twin Bridges. The chance to continue playing for Lott tipped the scale and she became a Falcon for her high school days.
The slashing, physical player dominated Class C for four years, earning all-state honors four times. She garnered statewide, Class C, divisional and district MVP honors while earning high honor roll accolades in the classroom. As a senior, she averaged 18.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.3 steals, 2.4 assists and 1.8 blocks per game. She cemented her local legend by scoring 41 points in the Class C championship game as her team fell to Belt. Outside the prep seasons, she played on a club team with former MSU stars like Lindsay Stockton and Alexa Dawkins.
“I thought her ability was pretty clear right away the first time we saw her out on the club circuit, so clear that we offered her on the spot,” Binford said. “She was so noticeable the way she plays so hard, her basketball IQ, her toughness, her mentality, super skilled. It was a no-brainer right from the start.
In high school, Ferris transformed into a skilled player who could operate all five positions. If a team was “giving us grief with the press”, Lott said, he would put Ferris at point guard. If the Falcons needed a bucket underneath, Ferris would move to the post.
During Ferris’ first two years at Montana State, Lott observed and wondered. He knew Ferris didn’t fit the prototype of a long-limbed post player many Division I coaches covet. But she seemed lost on the perimeter, not able to use her tremendous finishing skills with both hands nor her brute strength.
“In her first couple of years, she struggled a little bit,” Lott said. “She’s maybe 5-10. But she’s the toughest kid around and she’s strong, very strong. It took them a little while to figure it out but once they did, look out.
“There’s this pre-conceived notion that you have to be 6-1 to play the four or the five but I always thought, go down there and push on Peyton — and I did, trust me, in practice — and she’ll push you as hard as anybody, I promise. She might be giving up a couple of inches but some of those tall, lanky posts, I bet they hate her because she just blows them right out of there.”
Acclimating to the position change was a key factor as Ferris established a role with the Bobcats. But honing her own personal psychology through learning, both in her alone time and in her psychology classes, has sparked a rise to stardom.
Ferris has never had a problem conjuring up her competitive juices. On the contrary, holding her adrenaline back in competitive situations used to be her downfall. Ferris remembers getting so hyped for games, she would make herself sick. Early in her Bobcat career, her motor and effort were never in question but her ability to play with poise was sometimes detrimental. Once she locked in a consistent mindset, she blossomed.
“What I’ve learned (in psychology) has helped me understand myself better and control it,” Ferris said. “Coming into college, I was the one who always got over-amped up for games. I had no control. I would make myself sick sometimes. Now I know how to keep myself busy until the time gets closer, especially on weeks like this.”
As a sophomore, Ferris was destined to play as a reserve regardless of the health of her knee. But last season, she led the league in field goal percentage and averaged more than 15 points per game, second on the Big Sky championship team, numbers that certainly warranted a starting spot. Ferris bought into spelling Dawkins, a senior power forward. Ferris would begin each game riding the stationary bike and would check in just minutes into the action.
Learning to take care of her body has been equally as important as learning to nurture her mind. Ferris’ physical style does not cater to avoiding contact yet she has been able to take on the extra starter’s minutes as a senior full force. She is playing nearly 29 minutes a game, second on the Bobcats entering the final three games of the regular season.
“There’s quite a few kids who wouldn’t be able to come back from what she has come back from,” Binford said. “She’s dealt with physical and mental challenges. From a starting role to coming off the bench to working into a different position, Peyton’s mentality of ‘never give up’ has allowed her to surpass a lot of people’s end points. That mentality has made her stronger as a person.”
As her swan song season winds down, Ferris has transformed into a model student-athlete. The two-time Big Sky all-academic selection has already earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and psychology while she closes in on a master’s degree in family and community health.
On the court, she is saving her best for last. She is second in the league in scoring during league games (18.6 points per contest) and her overall scoring average is third. She is among the top rebounders and shooters in the conference and her ability to set the physical tone is second to none. Montana State is a win away from a second straight 20-win season and MSU is just a game out of first place with three home games to play. Montana State has won 22 straight games at home.
For Ferris herself, she said it has not sunken in yet that Saturday marks her last rivalry showdown. She knows it will hit her, win or lose, once Saturday’s contest ends. In the meantime, she is trying to embrace her final few weeks as the rare athlete that has seen her skills and potential culminate into one final standout season.
“My motivation is I love to compete,” Ferris said. “It’s in my family background. We are all competitors. We want to be the best we can be. Basketball brings everything together, trying to out-play someone, mastering strategy, focusing your mindset. I really key in on the strategy part and going out there and playing as hard as you can. My belief is once you get your mind right, if you go out there and play as hard as you can, do your best, the results will handle themselves.”
Photos by Brooks Nuanez. All Rights Reserved.
