State C Hoops
Surprise! Surprise! The Manhattan Christian High School boys’ basketball team qualified on Saturday, March 1, for the State C Tournament at the Butte Civic Center March 13-15.
Those in the program are not surprised because the annual exercise has become old hat for them.
Are you sitting down for this?
The Eagles have qualified for the State C Tournament 11 consecutive seasons, including this week’s State C gathering in Butte America.
That’s unheard of. Think about it for a moment. Eleven straight, in Montana High School Association’s Class C, which has the largest number of teams of the four total, the other larger schools being in Classes B, A and AA.
This amazing decade-old run began in 2015 when Jeff Bellach was the head coach.
The Eagles placed fourth in the 2015 State C Tournament and seventh in 2016. In 2017 and 2018 they were the runnersup to Arlee before winning it all in 2019.
Bellach stepped down as head coach before the 2020 season. Layne Glaus was hired to lead the Manhattan Christian boys, making the move from Park County (Livingston) where he was the head coach of the boys’ Rangers hoop program for five years and athletic trainer for seven years.
In his first season with the Eagles his squad placed sixth at the State C in Missoula in the spring of 2020, the one where both the Saturday girls and boys loser-out, consolation and championship games were scrapped due to health concerns. The Scobey and Fairview boys teams were named co-state champs.
In Glaus’s second season his team placed third while Scobey became the state champs without having to share this time around.
Glaus and his team won it all in 2022 and 2023 and placed second in 2024, falling to the Box Elder Bears 68-64 in the state title game.
Here they are this week, back where they apparently belong, which is hanging out in the Butte Civic Center for four days, not only playing in it but rooting on their girls’ team, which qualified as well.
“We have a good bunch of boys this season, a lot of seniors,” he said Monday morning during a telephone interview with the Leader.
It seems fitting his Eagles face the Lustre Christian Lio...
