Chinook, 9C boys teams hope to keep it going in Great Falls

The Northern C Divisional is routinely one of the toughest divisions in Class C boys basketball and starting Wednesday, three teams from the District 9C will try to battle their way into the Class C state tournament.

For the third straight season, the Chinook Sugarbeeters will be heading back to Great Falls for the Northern C and they will open their tournament Thursday morning at 11, against either Sunburst or Winnett-Grass Range. The Beeters, who are the two-time champions of the 9C, will enter the tournament with a perfect record (21-0) and the experience of making the Northern C semifinals the past two seasons.

Led by All-State standouts Isaac Bell and Cord Schneider, the Beeters will be among the most talented teams at the Northern C. However, Mike Seymour’s team is about much more than Bell and Schneider as Brendan Edwards, Trajan Hannum, Ethan Bell and Hunter Neibauer are all key contributors on a team that has won 36 straight in the 9C.

“The big things for us is going to be defense,” Seymour said. “We have to be able to play really good defense if we want to get out of divisionals because every team and every game is going to be tough.”

While Chinook will start its tournament Thursday, the other teams from the 9C, Fort Benton and Hays-Lodge Pole, will get going on Thursday. The Thunderbirds (15-7), the third-place team from the 9C will play at 7 p.m. Wednesday against Heart Butte, the 10C champion (16-5). Fort Benton will take the floor after against Roy-Winifred (7-14), the 8C champion at 8:30 p.m.

“It’s good for us to be back on the big stage,” HLP head coach Derrick Shambo said. “I think that we have come a long way and our defense especially has gotten much better. There are some really good teams and if we are going to have a chance, we have to play defense.”

The matchup between Hays-Lodge Pole and Heart Butte will feature the last two champions of the Northern C, however, HLP hasn’t been back since taking home the title in 2017. Fort Benton will also make its second straight trip to divisionals after winning a couple of games at the tournament last season. Fort Benton’s matchup with Roy-Winifred is an interesting one because the Outlaws are on a Cinderella ride right now, having won just six games during the regular season, but stunning Geraldine-Highwood, DGS and Belt on their way to the 8C title.

The Longhorns are fresh off a loss to Chinook in the 9C championship game and they will come to divisionals with a record of 18-3, with all three losses coming to Chinook, including a 68-40 defeat Saturday in the 9C championship game.

Fort Benton lost out to Belt in the consolation semifinals last season but with key players from last season like Garrett Diekhans, Hayden Diekans, Damon Bird and Logan Giles all back in the lineup, the Longhorns are hoping that experience can help them this week.

“We are ready to go back and we aren’t just happy to be there,” Fort Benton head coach Tyler Pasha said. “But we are going to have to work really hard and on defense. We have to sit down and defend and sometimes don’t do that. We also have to hit the boards. We are a smaller team and we can’t have just one or two guys getting all the rebounds.”

Sunburst and Winnett-Grass Range will open the tournament in the play-in game and then on Thursday, Belt (16-5), the 8C runner-up and Great Falls Central (19-2), the 10C runner-up will meet in the quarterfinals after Chinook’s game. GFCC is another top team that was upset in the district tournament last week, but will be a strong favorite this week in Great Falls.

The boys semifinals will be played at 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Friday night, with the championship game set for Saturday night at 8 p.m. The third-place game will be Saturday night at 6:30 and if there is a challenge game needed to decide one of the two state tournament berths, it will be Monday at 6 p.m. All of the action takes place inside the Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls. The top two teams will advance to the state tournament March 7-9 in Billings.