State C Preview Roy-Winifred Gals, M. Christian Guys Defending Titles

The Montana High School Association’s State C Basketball Tournaments tipped off Wednesday, March 8, for the girls and starts today (Thursday, March 9) for the boys in Billings, which leads to this question: what two teams are going to win it all?

No answer on this end for the action to be held at First Interstate Bank Arena at MetraPark, but stay tuned to this article for some statistics, scores, notes and quotes to help one decide.

As always, ladies first. The Twin Bridges Falcons (1st West, 21-2, 1255689, 54.5-29.9) took on the Carter County (Ekalaka) Bulldogs (2nd South, 19-3, 1398-963, 63.5-43.7) in the 3 p.m. tourney opener on Wednesday, March 8.

TWIN BRIDGES — Head coach Hannah Konen is in her second season at the helm and has won the West C Divisional both times. The statistic standing out for the Falcons is defensive points per game at 29.9. “We play a hard-nosed, in-your-face manto- man defense,” she told the Leader (Former head coach who she played for) “Rob Lott started that philosophy.” Offensively the Falcons are very deep and difficult to defend, said Konen. Allie Dale has consistently been the top scorer throughout the season with Kyle Pancost and Ayla Janzen rounding out the top three. Twin Bridges placed fourth at last season’s State C.

CARTER COUNTY (Ekalaka) — The Bulldogs lost twice in the regular season and both were to the Class B Baker Spartans: 8151 in Baker and 71-30 in Ekalaka. Their other loss was to red-hot Roberts in the South C championship game, a 64-54 final. An interesting fact is one of the regular season wins was over the team from Bison, South Dakota, a 6834 final on January 3.

In the 4:30 p.m. contest it was the Roy-Winifred Outlaws (1st North, 23-1, 1452659, 60.5-27.4) playing the Plentywood Wildcats (2nd East, 22-1, 1234-758, 53.632.9).

ROY-WINIFRED — The only loss the Outlaws have suffered this season was a 43-37 decision to the District 3C North Country Mavericks, which was on a neutral court at the Lewistown Tournament in December. Since then they have won 21 straight and only one of them has been close, which was a 45-38 victory over Chinook in a North C Divisional Tournament semifinal game in Great Falls. Isabelle Heggem had scoring games of 13 (Augusta), 19 (Chinook) and 24 (Fort Benton) at the North C tourney for an 18.6 points per game average. Laynee Eln...