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.
Hellgate hoops likes to cram as much Missoula excitement as it can into one action-packed week. Instead of spreading its crosstown games over its Western AA conference schedule, the Knights hit their Garden City rivals back to back in one crazy week. It pumps the energy level at games through the roof, Hellgate boys' basketball player Devin Bray said "We did it last year, too, but it's nice having a crosstown week and not just a crosstown day," said Bray, who scored six points in Hellgate's win against Sentinel on Tuesday, the first intercity matchup of the season and the week for the Knights. "It definitely makes you focus the whole time and not just for a day. You want to come out, show 'em what we got, and show the team we play the second time what we got as well." Following the Knights' 62-43 victory at home against Sentinel, they'll go on the "road" this weekend to visit Big Sky, a whole three miles of travel time. That game is Friday. Both are doubleheaders with the Hellgate girls' team. The pattern repeats in two weeks for Hellgate, visiting the Spartans on Tuesday, Feb. 18 before hosting Big Sky just two days later on a Thursday. It's a little added fun that the Hellgate teams get to indulge -- on top of the already manic atmosphere of a rivalry game. "It's so loud you can't hear the coaches yell," Bray said with a laugh. "You just have to concentrate on the game and you have to block it out. You hear stuff from the crowd and it gets pretty intense with the crowds. It's an awesome feeling, though."
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.
It's been a very long time since the Bozeman Hawks received a true challenge on the football field. Their closest game in almost two months was a 27-point victory. So can anybody beat Bozeman now that we're on the eve of Montana's Class AA football postseason? That much is still unknown, but it doesn't mean the rest of the field won't be ready to try to knock off the 10-0 titans. It all starts with the Spartans of Missoula Sentinel this Friday. "We respect them," Sentinel senior lineman Ryan Nagel said, "but we don't fear them." "They’re definitely beatable," fellow Spartan senior Jeremy Eisenmann said. "Just like any other team, they have their weaknesses." It's just that so far, those weakness have been very, very well masked. Bozeman, the preseason pick as conference champs and the steady No. 1 in the weekly media polls all year, is the heavy favorite for a state championship after coming up just short in 2012. Those Hawks lost 38-36 to Butte High. These Hawks haven't lost a thing. Undefeated Bozeman leads AA in scoring offense (51 points per game) and scoring defense (12.6 points per game). Only once have the Hawks been held to fewer than five touchdowns scored in a game – their most narrow victory coming 27-12 over Kalispell Glacier back on Sept. 13. "Their average margin of victory is ..." Sentinel coach Dane Oliver started, "well, a number I don't even want to disclose. Several touchdowns." The Hawks have the state's leading rusher Hunter Gappmayer (179.4 yards per game), who's out right now with an injury but could be back for a potential Round 2 match, and third-leading passer Will Weyer. The quarterback has thrown 25 touchdowns this season to just three interceptions. Because Bozeman doesn't turn the ball over. The Hawks have just seven giveaways on the year, about half as many as any other team, and are plus-21 in the takeaway category. That's 10 more than any other school. But it's too early to crown the Hawks, the remaining seven playoff teams shout in unison. Should the 6-4 Spartans come up short, Bozeman will reach the semifinals and another challenger. Should the brackets continue to play out the way they've been built and No. 1 clash with No. 2 for the state title later this November, the Hawks will find a rematch of their greatest challenge from the regular season. The 9-1 Glacier Wolfpack hung with the Hawks back in September like no one else has. Now the Pack is just hoping for another shot. "They’re definitely ahead (of everyone else)," said Glacier coach Grady Bennett, whose 2012 squad lost in the state semis to Bozeman. "We like to think we’re one of the teams that, if we get a chance to play them again, we think we could be the ones to take them out." Class AA First Round Pairings Friday 7 p.m. – No. 8 Missoula Sentinel (6-4) at No. 1Bozeman (10-0) 7 p.m. – No. 6 Billings Skyview (6-4) at No. 3 Helena High (9-1) 7 p.m. – No. 7 Butte (6-4) at No. 2 Kalispell Glacier (9-1) Saturday 1 p.m. – No. 5 Great Falls Russell (6-4) at No. 4 Helena Capital (7-3)
As a sportswriter, it's important to begin a post-game interview with the right question. You need something that can start a dialogue and set the pace for the rest of the conversation, something that proves you as the asker are competent and entices the interviewees to want to talk and give you those juicy nuggets to fill out a story. Saturday, following Hot Springs's nail-biter of a 6-man football loss to Denton-Geyser-Stanford, I decided to start my conversation with Savage Heat coach Jim Lawson by asking how it was that his team managed to score 21 points – i.e. three booming touchdowns – on three massive plays that totaled 220 yards while the rest of his early game tries on offense went for squadoosh. He, immediately recognizing me as a 6-man rookie, politely offered an explanation to the explosiveness of broken plays before adding a smile and a caveat: "That stuff is all pretty common in 6-man football." You're right, Coach. Of course it is. It was at about this time I think we each acknowledged I was a bit out of my element. You see, Saturday's Montana Class C state quarterfinal game was my first foray into the world of 6-man football. I did my homework. I knew the major differences between 11-man – your typical football seen everywhere from ESPN to the Little Grizzlies. Fifteen yards for a first down, not 10. An extra point kick is worth two, not one. Same as a two-point conversion is not for two by any means and just a single point. Plus quarterbacks can't scramble past the line of scrimmage, even when rushed, so two skill players must touch the ball on every play. Oh and the field is only 80 yards from end zone to end zone, not 100. I'd forgotten the part where quarters last only 10 minutes, down from the regulation 12 of all other high school football games, but that had little impact on my ability to cover the game Saturday. Sadly with Hot Springs' 58-52 loss to Denton-Geyser-Stanford at home, that ends 6-man football season in the Missoulian's coverage area. No more 6-man teams from western Montana remain in the state playoff bracket. Which is too bad. I quite enjoyed the fast-paced game, which saw 84 points by halftime and supplied big play after big play. Six-man truly is the Wild West of football, where anything can happen and highlight-reel plays are made about as often as I could log them in my stat book The lone drawback of my experience came more from the setting than the game itself. With no cell service in Hot Springs, I was suddenly tossed backward in time as a reporter. No Twitter, no live updates, not even the iPad scoring app worked – albeit for a much different reason that involves system crashes whenever a player scores on a kick return. I guess I'll have to wait until next fall to get a second dose of the fastest sport on the gridiron. Perhaps by then, I'll be able to impress those 6-man connoisseurs with my bulging knowledge of the small-town game.
The tiny towns of Westby and Grenora straddle the Montana-North Dakota border way up near where the United State meets Canada. Hot Springs in western Montana may as well be in a different country. The MonDak Thunder 6-man football team, which comprises players from both towns, traveled almost 800 miles for its Class C quarterfinal playoff game at Hot Springs on Saturday on a journey split up into three days. The drive home is always a little easier when there's a win in tow. MonDak upset third-ranked Hot Springs 32-22 for the Savage Heat's first loss of the season, but the Thunder trailed by four at halftime. Coach Troy Walters chalked that up at least in part to the pilgrimage the boys had just endured. "The bus rides and two nights in different hotels and eating out every night, they're not in that good routine," Walters said. "You could kinda tell after the first five minutes of the game we kinda settled down. All of a sudden we decided, 'OK, let's just play football and hit people and see what happens.' " Westby-Grenora shut out Hot Springs' dangerous offense, a unit that averages more than 55 points per game, after allowing touchdowns on the opening two drives. The win capped a week-long football effort for the east-side boys. The bus left Westby back on Thursday as the team made for Bozeman for pit stop No. 1. The Thunder got in a practice first just up the road at Reedpoint on Interstate 90. They stayed in Missoula on Friday and practiced again at Alberton's field up the road before heading on to Hot Springs, the last 75 miles or so of the 797-mile one way journey, on Saturday morning. For a little perspective – or maybe a geography lesson – on just how far the Thunder drove this week, Minneapolis is closer to Westby than Hot Springs. And, using the I-90 route the team took, by about 150 miles even. The team could nearly have made it to Omaha in fact, though bus's allotted mileage probably would have run out in the suburbs somewhere near Missouri Valley, Iowa. It's all par for the MonDak course. No team is close, even those in the Eastern C division. "I don't know if you've ever been to northeast Montana where Westby is – or Grenora – but I'll tell you what, we travel sooo much," Walters said. "Our conference, they're all five hours away. Our kids are used to that." The Thunder bought themselves another long bus ride next week. MonDak travels to Stanford-Denton-Geyser for the state semifinals. That one's in Denton, a mere 400-ish miles away.
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.
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.