It was about three weeks ago now that the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball snatched up Missoulian Riley King in the 2013 MLB first-year player draft. The 19-year-old outfielder quickly chose baseball over returning to the hoops program at Carroll College, signing to play in the Royals' minor league system and jetting off to Arizona and Kansas City's extended spring training facility in Surprise. That was the last time we'd heard from the Missoula Sentinel graduate. Well now an update: King will remain in Arizona, at least for now, with the Royals' rookie-level affiliate in the Arizona League this season. King boarded a plane for the southwest on June 11, two days after finishing his pro paperwork. All of the recently signed draftees from the organization would be there before getting divvied up along the minor-league ladder. When the Arizona Royals opened their season on June 20, the 24th-rounder from Missoula was in the starting lineup batting fifth. He hasn't had the success that fans of the Missoula Mavericks had come to expect on a daily basis, but then again this isn't exactly Montana American Legion pitching he's facing either. King has a .208 batting average through six games and is still looking for his first extra base hit. Still, he's nothing if not consistent. King opened the season on a three-game hitting streak and has hits in five of the Royals' first six games. He's also one of only seven position players on the team who hasn't committed an error yet. None of the other six has played in more than five games either. We'll keep you up to speed on any happenings related to Missoula's recently drafted baseball star throughout the summer. Should King get the call up to advanced rookie, one step up in the minor league system, his destination will be Idaho Falls and the Chukars of the Pioneer League. Missoula plays two series against the Chukars this summer, once at home July 13-15 and once on the road July 20-23. King will have to play some inspired ball in Arizona to make the jump in the next two weeks for a trip back to Missoula. Until that call finally comes, he'll have to start trying to enjoy that broiling Arizona sunshine.
By this point everybody has heard the news of Montana men's basketball coach Wayne Tinkle's recent hire by Oregon State. Tinkle takes a winning history to a Beavers program hoping to do much more of that in the not-so distant future. But will he also take his son, current Missoula Hellgate junior and big-time prospect Tres, with him? Tres Tinkle helped Hellgate to a State AA basketball championship two seasons ago and the Knights very nearly repeated in March, a season in which Tres was named Montana's Gatorade Player of the Year. The 6-foot-7, 210-pound forward has already drawn major interest from schools around the country and offers from the likes of USC, Utah and Boston College. Then last week we found out the 4-star recruit from the Class of 2015 pulled an invite to the NBPA Top 100 Camp, right around the time he was in Southern Cal.
2015 f Tres Tinkle Hellgate Montana will visit USC this morning. One of top f's in the country. Recently invited to NBA top 100.
— Earl Watson Elite (@earlwatsonelite) May 15, 2014
Some are speculating that Wayne Tinkle's hire may give OSU the inside edge to get Tres in two years, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The most immediate question is this: Will the Knight's star follow his father to Oregon, or will he finish his prep career in Missoula?
It's too early to tell, Tres told the Missoulian Tuesday via Twitter.
"I'm not sure yet," he wrote. "Still trying to figure it out. I wanna stay in Missoula."
He had a similar message for Scout.com earlier this week, though that also pertained to potential recruitment to Oregon St. Basically, Tres said, he'll let things play out before making a decision.
Wayne's hire by the Beavers does makes the school “stand out to me more, but as of now, I’m still open to anything,” he told Scout.com. “It would be awesome to play for my dad, but he knows what’s best for me, and if that’s going somewhere else or playing for him, he’ll support me all the way.”
It's not really a question of exposure, though high school ball in Oregon would certainly give him more of that. Tres has been quite visibly on the map for years thanks to his summer ball outings, impressive performances that have continued again this spring.
In Corvallis, Oregon, he'd have the chance to play for one of state's Class 5A schools, Corvallis High School or Crescent Valley High School. Corvallis was 11-13 last season while Crescent Valley was 15-9, per the OSAA.
There's also the option of Class 3A Santiam Christian, sort of the Missoula Loyola Sacred Heart of the Corvallis area, should the private school route appeal.
If he stays, the Hellgate Knights could expect another season contending for the State AA title in Montana. He averaged 21.1 points, 7.4 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.8 steals per game last season.
Without Tres the Knights would be down four starters from the 2013-14 season, only point guard Devin Bray returning as a senior. Montana would also have lost one of its top basketball recruits in recent memory.
Way back in November, Missoula Sentinel senior Olivia Roberts signed to play basketball at the University of Wyoming after graduation.
Before she ever suits up for the Cowgirls, Roberts is getting a chance to play against some cowgirls this weekend as part of the Treasure State's roster in the Montana-Wyoming All-Star Basketball Series.
"I think I'm most excited to play with all the best players in Montana," Roberts said this week before leaving for Billings to practice with her all-star squad. "Just to know that we all can step up and all know what it's like to have that same kind of mentality and motivation on the court." There are no Wyoming commits among the 10 girls on the state's all-star prep team. The school was most notably beat out by Stanford in the courting of Kaylee Johnson of Natrona County this past fall. Roberts said her loyalties haven't switched over from her home Montana quite yet. At least for a couple more months, until she makes the move to Laramie for school this fall, she's still a Montana girl."I'm just excited to kick Wyoming's butt," she laughed. "And then when I go to school, it'll be vice versa."
The former Spartan led Sentinel to three straight State AA basketball titles with a pair of all-state selections in her final two seasons. She averaged 18.3 and 8.3 points per game as a senior.
UPDATED: A blizzard warning forced the postponement of the Sentinel-Capital basketball games Thursday. The action will be made up on Monday, Mar. 3, with Sentinel's girls still hosting Capital at 7 p.m. and the boys on the road in Helena also at 7 p.m. ------ Almost four weeks ago, Helena Capital knocked Missoula Sentinel off the path of the unbeatens by upsetting the No. 1 ranked Spartans 55-50 in Helena. Neither team has lost since as last year's State AA finalists have been hurtling toward another rematch this week. The now top-ranked Bruins come to Missoula to face the second-ranked Spartans for a 7 p.m. tip-off Thursday, a meeting of two 17-1 clubs with high state aspirations. Sentinel coach Karen Deden doesn't expect to change much in the way of her approach on the eve of the showdown. After all, the high-energy defensive game plan did work quite well for a half when Sentinel led 32-20 at the midpoint of the game. "You know we were up by 12 there," said Deden, now in her 14th year leading the varsity girls at her alma mater. "We just got tight in the third quarter after they hit some shots on us." After a 10-0 run in the second quarter handed the Spartans control, Sentinel managed just three points in the third and Capital and big post player Michaela Dowdy walked away with the win behind solid free throw shooting down the stretch. Dowdy, a 6-foot-2 Carroll College commit who averages 18.9 points per game, finished with 21 points and shot 9 of 11 from the line. Her team was 19 of 24 overall on charity shots. Defense in the key will again be a main point of emphasis for Sentinel, Deden said. That puts Sentinel's own post, 6-1 senior Sam Harper, on the front lines. "I still think she's a great player," Deden said of Dowdy. "We've got to figure out how we're going to limit her touches, stop Kenzie Johnston and just play better defense than we did." Deden continued: "You're getting down the stretch. Everybody's playing their best basketball. You expect people to play well." Capital may still be without senior Alexa Welch. The guard injured her knee almost two weeks ago against Bozeman and has since missed three straight games. The Spartans counter with their own standouts, led by seniors Olivia Roberts and Maddie Keast. A future Wyoming Cowgirl, Roberts scores 17.2 points per game and Keast it no slouch either at 13.7. Harper adds another 8.9 points a game and also leads Class AA in blocked shots (32). Another important factor here is where the game is played. Sentinel has home court on its side this time. The Spartans haven't lost at home in more than three years and bring a 32-game home winning streak into Thursday's matchup. But who was it that last came to Sentinel High School and managed to win? Well Helena Capital, of course, behind a 39-38 thriller back on Feb. 3, 2011. "That whole team are great basketball players and we definitely respect them, but we're looking forward to them," said Keast, a future Lady Griz player. "They're our biggest rival and we really want to take them down. And it's senior night; we want to go out with a bang." Sentinel's last win in the series came last March, a 49-40 victory in the State AA title game that secured the Spartans' second straight championship and capped a 22-1 season.
Missoula Hellgate is in the running for Best Boys Basketball Program of 2015 in a poll conducted by the USA Today and the Knights have already made the regional round. That makes Montana's State AA front-runner one of the top seven programs in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Idaho and Wyoming -- but they need your help to reach the national finals. Just vote online here as many times as you want. The second round (regionals) runs through noon on Thursday, Jan. 29. Hellgate is up against a handful of programs from the region including the Bismarck (N.D.) Demons, the DeLaSalle Catholic (Minn.) Islanders, the St. Thomas More (S.D.) Cavaliers, the Twin Falls (Idaho) Bruins, the White River (S.D) Tigers and the Wyoming Indian School (Wyo.) Chiefs. The top three placers in the region earn prizes for their athletic department:
When running back Marty Pigeon went down with a shoulder injury in Loyola Sacred Heart's quarterfinal football clash with Red Lodge, the Rams backfield was suddenly without the left jab in its 1-2 punch. Senior Tony Madsen carried the load fine enough alone that week – to the tune of 137 yards on 31 carries for two touchdowns – but coach Dan Weber didn't want his back worn down by so many touches. So he shuffled the deck and came up with Stephen Sellman. Like clockwork, the backup quarterback shifted a few steps in his backfield lineup and ran wild in Loyola's semifinal win over Boulder racking up 111 yards on 11 carries, including a TD rush. "To be honest with you, that's a credit to our offensive line," Weber said. "The fact that we're able to bring a guy who's our backup quarterback in and put him in the halfback spot in there for us and have him carry the ball and be our leading ball carrier for us in the semifinal game really says something about the way out offensive line is blocking." Indeed. Loyola put up 223 rushing yards as a unit and had a pair of 100-yard backs as Madsen also broke the century plateau. The run game will be less of an emphasis for Loyola this week as the Rams take on Baker in the State B championship game Saturday at 1 p.m. The Spartans are a very good run defending team, Weber said, but it'll be nice to have a pair of backs to spread the load around when the Rams hit the ground. Especially now since he and the coaching staff know Sellman can hit the holes. "Most of his carries in all honesty had been in the fourth quarter when he was in as the backup quarterback," Weber said of Sellman's rushing work this season prior to last week. "And a lot of those were scrambling opportunities and he didn't have the starting line out there in front of him. "He was kind of running for his life so I don't know if that helped or hurt when he stepped into the role as the running back," Weber added with a chuckle.
Back in early December, Corvallis prospect Jesse Sims de-committed from Oregon State, University where he had planned to play college football, after head coach Mike Riley left for Nebraska. Almost six weeks later, he's coming closer to making a decision -- again -- to where he will take his football talents. But not quite yet. "There's honestly not a whole lot new since then," Sims said Monday evening after a Corvallis basketball practice. "Still just waiting to see what kind of coaching staff they'll put in." The "they" in that statement is of course Oregon State, where Sims said he'd still like to play. An NCAA Division-I program in the Pac-12 Conference, the Beavers were Sims's first choice when he committed back in August and they'd still be now. But Sims wants to play tight end and he needs to make sure the Beavers still want him. New head coach Gary Anderson runs a different offense and Sims is uneasy about the role -- or possible lack thereof -- that tight ends might play in the system. In the meantime Pac-12 schools like USC and Arizona State are courting the 6-foot-4, 235-pounder, as well as Nebraska. But he's keeping his options open, too. Sims will make official recruiting visits to Montana's two D-I FCS programs this month. He visits Montana State this coming weekend, Jan. 16-17. He'll be in Missoula the next weekend, Jan. 23-24, to see the program at Montana and new head football coach Bob Stitt. Could the locals pull off the coup and snag this once promising Pac-12 prospect? We should know soon enough. National signing day is right around the corner, Feb. 4.
UPDATED: It's been a little over two months since college football had its big signing day. We brought you this list at that point, but it's gotten quite a bit longer since then -- up to 39 area signees.
UPDATED: With fall camps just around the corner, the list of western Montana natives in the Missoulian's coverage area has swelled near 50. Take a look:
Following Tommy Tirrell's tie-breaking chip-off victory Friday that earned him second place at the Loyola Sacred Heart Invitational golf tournament, he carried his iron off the 18th green to talk to a waiting reporter. They introduced themselves, having never met before. Tirrell didn't garner too many interviews in his sophomore or freshman seasons golfing at Loyola. "You probably talked to Tom last year," Tirrell said, no hint of animosity in his statement of fact, just an observation. Tom Swanson, and with him Maggie Crippen on the girls' side, dominated the action for the Rams and Breakers golf teams over the past few seasons. Each are gone now onto NCAA Division I programs, but the Loyola golf legacy still has some sheen on it. The Loyola teams flashed it at their home invitational this week, the season opener for action without their multi-medalist leaders in camp. Swanson and Crippen were each three-time State B individual champions in their last three seasons of high school golf before graduating last spring. Swanson headed off to Michigan to swing for the Wolverines while Crippen is now on the links with North Dakota State. In their place is a new crew that isn't really very new at all. The top two girls and boys each played important roles in the past few seasons, though as sidekicks to their well-known superhero teammates. "And I think that even we didn't know how far along they had come," Loyola head golf coach Julia Jones said following the conclusion of this week's Loyola Invite. Tirrell and Jared Geer, who battled it out for second place Friday, were both top 10 finishers at state last year. So were Sadie Crippen and Brooke Bezanson on the girls' side, Crippen nearly knocking off her older sister before finishing second in the state meet. They seem to be stepping into the empty shoes with gusto as Loyola looks to continue its half decade of sheer state dominance. The boys are five-time defending champs, tied for the most consecutive wins at any boys' level with the 1993-97 Columbus team, while the Breakers have five straight state-trophy winning seasons with top-three finishes. Right there in the middle in 2011 is the program's only championship. "I think the expectation that they have is that if they work hard enough that it will continue," "And we've got good leadership. Jared Geer is our only senior, so they're young, but they're pretty well seasoned." Other players like Tom Sellman and Bryan Swanson for the boys and Madison Purdy, Julia Downing and Rosie McCormack for the girls will keep pushing those top pairs as the Rams and Breakers continue their march on Class B golf.
Missoula Sentinel students Alvin Adams and Sean McCoy will get the chance to play lacrosse this summer thanks to the generosity of a local lacrosse enthusiast and their Life Skills Department teacher. The Sentinel duo, who finished their freshman year of high school Friday, received hand-made custom lacrosse sticks from Tucker Sargent, University of Montana club lacrosse coach, after he was contacted by para-educator Christian Bitterauf. The sticks were part of a "graduation" celebration for the students who successfully finished another school year. The wooden sticks, which also have the boys' names engraved in them, came from Sargent's new business, Sargent Sticks. The Life Skills department at Sentinel serves students with mild to moderate cognitive and physical disabilities.
It's been a long time since Missoula Sentinel wrestler Jaydn Wilson had lost a match at his Spartans' home tournament, the Jug Beck Rocky Mountain Classic. That's three years to be exact. As he won his way into the semifinals of the 2014 addition of the tournament this weekend, the 37th such holding at Sentinel High School, he'd come to the spot where a freshman Wilson had been knocked off the championship path. In between were more than 15 wins. But that streak came to an end in Saturday's semifinals.Wrestling Clarkston (WA) big man Dylan Beeler at 220 pounds, Wilson owned a 3-1 advantage with moments left in the third and final period. Beeler got the upper hand and scored a two-point takedown to tie things up with five seconds remaining in the period. The boys battled to a stalemate through the first minute-long overtime and went to a second. With Beeler starting from the down position, he pulled away for an escape and even scored another takedown in that 30 seconds to go up 6-3. During Wilson's turn in the down position in the second 30-second section, he failed to make up the ground and was even caught for what looked like a near-fall. Beeler could have tallied three more points with the near-fall as time expired but the match finished with that score and Wilson's first loss in three years of Jug Beck matches. But the Sentinel senior didn't let it get him down. He followed his two Jug Beck championships with a bronze in this year's event. He pinned Helena Capital's Dillon Coffman in the consolation semis and then beat Mead's Mason Ju 7-2 in the consolation championship. The Spartans' most dominant wrestler improved his record to 27-2 in matches held at the Classic.
Winning four straight state wrestling titles is hard enough, but the reclassification of weight classes in Montana that began this year will likely make the feat decidedly more difficult. When the Montana High Schools Association shifted from 15 to 13 wrestling classes, it eliminated the weight at which many four-timers wrestled as freshmen. The 98 and 105 weights were combined -- as were 195 and 220 on the upper end -- to form a new hybrid weight of 103 that will leave fewer holes in brackets and dual lineups. But it also adds new competition for the lightest weight, the one typically housing freshmen, by doubling the participants. "It's going to be interesting with the weight changes," said Columbia Falls wrestling coach Jesse Schaeffer, who has a senior in his wrestling room chasing state title No. 4 this week in Shonn Roberts. "I think that's going to maybe reduce that." Twenty-three Montana wrestlers have completed their four-peats and 11 of those started at 98 pounds of lower -- Gene Davis of Missoula County High, the state's first four-timer, won his freshman year at 95 pounds in 1960 before a similar weight shift later in the decade. Add in Roberts, who will compete at 138 pounds when state action begins Friday in Billings but won at 98 in 2012, and that's exactly half. "It's kind of weird since that's what I wrestled at as a freshman," Roberts began, "but 103, the 98-105 mix, I think that's reasonable. It'll make things a little bit tougher." That's hardly the thinking behind merging weights, though. At either extreme ends of the weight scale (195 and 220 became the 205 class) fewer teams -- especially at lower classifications -- could field a full lineup. Many times, too few entrants there led to a state bracket marred by automatic byes and regular season duals that might as well skip on to 105 pounds anyway. The unintended consequence is that 2015 may be near the last time wrestling fans will get a trio of four-time possibles all on the mats at the same time. Sidney's Gresh Jones joins Roberts in the Class A tournament this week at 126 pounds searching for his fourth, while Forsyth's Matt Weber will be the talk of Class B-C with a potential fourth title. Both boys won their first -- and lightest -- at 112 pounds, though.
Think of your favorite contact sport. Yes, right now.
Was it football? Maybe hockey? Or rugby? How about volleyball?
Volleyball. Columbia Falls’ outside hitter Haley Belgarde proved volleyball is very much a contact sport. Just give this little video a watch. The payoff comes just after the 20-second mark.