High School basketball ended for the year last week with the state tournaments for various classes spread around the state. Next up spring sports start and hopefully the weather starts warming up for track and field, tennis and golf, but it’s not looking good at this point. Practice started on Monday around the state.
In basketball state tournaments Class C Arlee won their first title with a 71-67 win over Manhattan Christian, Scobey took third. In Class C girls Belt continues to dominate, taking the title over Arlee 62- 33. Twin Bridges took third. In Class B boys’ Malta came back to beat Anaconda 54-51, and Shelby took third by beating Whitehall 52-42. Class B girls saw familiar teams in the title game. Fairfield and Malta have faced each other many times over a lot of years. This time it was Fairfield that came away with a 34-33 win. Three Forks lost its first game of the tournament to Malta, 62-59, and then won its next three to take third. They beat Ronan 59-49, Wolf Point 59-44 and Red Lodge 63-56 for third. They will be back next year as they had no seniors on the team. Colstrip and Ronan went into the tournament undefeated and both lost out in two games. Dillon repeated with an undefeated season, beating Billings Central 59-45 to take the Class A boys’ title. Polson took third 54-47 over Belgrade.
In Class A girls Columbia Falls beat Hardin 73-50 for the title. Butte Central took third with a 60-41 win over Corvallis. Helena High won the girls’ title in Class AA by beating Missoula Sentinel 46-41 for their first title in quite a few years. Billings Senior took third with a 42-34 win over Bozeman. On the boys’ side, Kalispell Glacier won its first basketball title with a 46- 42 win over Bozeman. Billings Skyview took third by beating Great Falls 83-55. Overall District 5B did very well with the White- hall boys and Three Forks girls both playing on Saturday night. Only four teams advanced out of district this year. Next year the district will have three boys’ teams and three girls’ teams advance to divisional.
