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Let’s talk about something else for a while. How about Tuesday Night Men’s golf? Playing through the ongoing pandemic hazard with some slightly altered rules of competition, the Tuesday Night Men’s League teed off on 2020 play last week while maintaining social distancing on the friendly greens and fairways of River’s Bend Golf Course. Bouncing that dimpled ball off their clubs the best, Easy Street Autoworks team members Dave Garr, Ron Beaty, Jens Jantzen and Rusty Haggard added up a 176 to win low team gross honors, while Big Sky Pantry...
Wednesday night golf, why not? The Wednesday Night Men’s League met up at River’s Bend for the first time this season – at socially acceptable distances from each other, of course – and had some fun with it on opening night last week. The First Security Bank team of Mike Baxter, Ben Mummert, Mike Scharfe and Bill Nolen posted the low team gross (170) while the Ty’s team of John Mosher, Tyler Bates and Jesse Mosher (the fourth player’s score for Ty’s was determined by a blind draw) carded the low team net of 145. Ryan Ostwald led the Wednesday...
It is the silent season of sports, this spring of 2020. But maybe we can break that silence a little bit by talking about it. It doesn’t really seem fair, does it? What has happened to our society these past several weeks. Several months ago, no one would have dreamed what life during a pandemic would be like but here we are living that dream, the waking, walking nightmare called COVID-19. Like most everyone else I know, I have been hunkered down at home these past several weeks, a devout sports follower without any sports to follow. Cold t...
The wind came up and the fire crews got busy. The Montana DNRC and the U.S. Forest Service responded to a pair of wind-driven fire starts last week and, with a little help from their cooperators, quickly put both of those fires to bed. Both fires broke out on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 23. Northeast of Plains, a fire of undetermined origin took off a couple of miles up Henry Creek and quickly grew to over 20 acres. In the Montana DNRC's area of fire responsibility, the fire was initially...
First there was no softball or track and field. Now there will be no all-star football games either, all thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. And coaches, athletes and fans all over the country are hoping that the sports seasons beyond this summer are not similarly affected later on this year. Montana’s all-star football games potentially affecting Sanders County athletes – the 24th annual 6-Man All-Star game at Highwood May 30, the 30th annual Bob Cleverly 8-Man All-Star game at Montana Tech in Butte June 6, and the granddaddy of them all...
When you have been to the mountaintop and plant a flag, it's easy to start believing that maybe you belong there. And makes you eager to prove that you should be there again, maybe to reposition that flag at a higher point on the hill than the last time. Winning consistently, year-in and year-out, gives you that kind of incentive, the kind with which coach Michele Bangen and her Plains-Hot Springs Trotters now enter each season. Rising to the top of the Montana Class B-C softball world again...
Song sung blue, everybody knows one. The Thompson Falls-Noxon Lady Hawk softball team and coach Jared Koskela have been singing the blues this spring after the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly shut the season down in early March. Although that might seem like a long time ago in this time of social distancing and germophobia, it was actually only a few weeks ago. Okay, maybe a month or more by now. But put yourself in Koskela's shoes. When you are directed to stop by forces greater than you, there is...
The coach for all seasons is now a coach for no season, until further notice. A coach for sports of all kinds during all seasons of the school year during his long run at Thompson Falls High School and other places, Gary Thompson has returned as head coach of the Blue Hawk golf team – if only there was a season to coach right now. He has the team, just no season to participate in. At least not yet at any rate. Locked out of competition like everyone else in the country by the ongoing COVID-19 cr...
It took her a couple of weeks to reach peace with this interrupted season, but Plains track and field coach Denise Montgomery says she has. The veteran of eight years of working with her Trotter and Horsemen athletes each spring until now is finally good with 2020, not coaching and maintaining social distance with her beloved kids and all. Even though it drove her crazy for a couple of weeks arriving at this point of peace of mind. A lot of people know exactly what Montgomery is going through...
Trenna Ferris shouldn't be sitting at her kitchen table right now, devising training schedules for her track and field athletes. Take a look out the window at that beautiful Sanders County weather. It's nice outside, she should be out there in the field, or on the track, coaching her Thompson Falls athletes as the bright, brilliant spring weather of western Montana finally kisses our surrounding mountains with sunshine and warmth. In between the intermittent spring rains typical for this time...
Rylan Weltz signed a national letter of intent last week, declaring his intention to play basketball for the Dawson Community College Buccaneers, the Glendive junior college announced in a press release last week. A two-time All-State C basketball performer for the Noxon Red Devils and an athlete for all seasons during his time at NHS, Weltz was a District 14C all-conference player all four years of his prep career. His final decision as to where to go to school and continue playing basketball...
Plains golf coach Lisa Brown was in her own little world Tuesday morning. “I’m living the dream,” she said. “Sitting here in an empty classroom with my life-sized Larry Bird cutout for company. “This is the level I have reached after three weeks without having kids in school.” Brown now does her solitary teaching duties by internet, a far less satisfying form of educational communication. Although classroom loneliness has driven her to companionship with an inanimate, ancient basketball player w...
Lady Hawks Megan Baxter, Jody Detlaff and Ellie Baxter have been honored as District 7B all-conference performers for their fine play this past season. The Lady Hawks won the regular season and tournament conference championships before winning third in the Western B divisional tournament and just missing a berth into last week's abbreviated State B tournament, compiling an impressive 19-5 record along the way. Megan Baxter led the way for the Hawks on the all-conference team, garnering the...
Sanders County seniors Brandon Knudsen of Hot Springs and Rylan Weltz of Noxon earned District 14C first team honors and All-State C recognition for their standout basketball play last winter to lead the 14C all-conference squad which was named last week. Knudsen and Weltz were joined on the 14C first team by Treydon Brouillette and Kade Pardee of the District 14C regular season and tournament champion Plains Horsemen, and Andrew Sanford and Nicholas Day of St. Regis. Brouillette and Day are...
Plains senior Kylee Altmiller and Charlo junior Liev Smith earned All-State C honors as the District 14C girls all-conference team was named earlier this week. The Hot Springs Savage Heat, who were ranked in the top ten of Montana’s Class C teams most of the season, earned a rare trip to the Western C divisional tournament and finished an impressive 19-5, placed three starters – sophomore Katelyn Christensen and seniors Sydney Jackson and McKennzie Cannon – on the first team, and a fourth – senior Brianna Gray – on the second team. From Noxon,...
ayers on the District 7B boys basketball all-conference team last week as sophomores Sidney Akinde and Nathan Schraeder earned first team honors and junior Cody Burk second-team recognition. The District 7B tournament champions, Eureka had two players named first team and two others second team and Bigfork had one named first team and two other players second team. The Blue Hawks, after finishing fourth in the 7B tourney, ended up being the last 7B team standing at the Western B divisional, also placing fourth there. All-conference teams are...
Accustomed to wearing red, Noxon’s Rylan Weltz and Michael Antonich have earned the right to wear blue in the 2020 Montana 6-Man All-Star football game in Highwood later this spring. As reported in last week’s issue of Ledger, Hot Springs senior Brandon Knudsen will play for the other side in the game – the Red side – and Hot Springs coach Jim Lawson will be on the staff for the Red team as well. Already Western C all-conference selections and both seniors, Weltz and Antonich earned their invitations with their fine play in leading the Red Dev...
Shut it down right now, the show is over until further notice. At least until we get this coronavirus situation figured out a little better. The bizarre thing about this whole COVID-19 scenario is nobody really knows what is next and how long this whole process will take, but right now we are pretty much on lockdown. And that's not only sports that are shut down; it's everything and anything that draws 10 or more people together for doing virtually anything. It's time to pretend you are back in...
HAMILTON – Call it the new Lady Hawk basketball reality. It's a brave new world where winning games on a regular basis and competing for post-season glory is the rule and not the exception. Playing exceptional basketball, just like they have all season, the rejuvenated Lady Hawks won third place in the Western B divisional tournament in Hamilton last week, capping an encouraging season with an impressive 19-5 record, the District 7B regular season and tournament championships, and perhaps more i...
HAMILTON – Too bad the season is not a few weeks longer. If it were, the Thompson Falls boys just may have been able to put together a State B tournament run, and could now be making plans for visiting Butte for some more basketball fun March 12-14. Seeming to improve incrementally each week late in the season, coach Jake Mickelson's Blue Hawks may have run out of time more than anything else. Showing that they can hang with the big boys in the Western B, the Hawks proved to be contenders for on...
Welcome to that pressure cooker they call the Western C divisional basketball tournament, where only the very best teams are even allowed through the gym door. Battling gamely against the best of the west in Montana, the Hot Springs Savage Heat girls won one of three games and were still playing Saturday in the Western C divisional tournament in Frenchtown last week. Coach Richard Jackson and his powerful Savage Heat, who completed season play with a sparkling 18-5 record (believed to be one of...
In the end, 2019-2020 will go down as another championship season for the storied Plains Horsemen basketball program. The Horsemen’s championship run ended for the season at the Western C divisional tournament in Frenchtown last week as the Plains boys fell to Gardiner 60-47 in the first round Thursday and then to Darby 66-49 in loser-out play Friday. Manhattan Christian defeated Gardiner 72-55 in the Western C championship game Saturday. Twin Bridges then upended Gardiner 49-41 in a Monday night challenge game to earn the division’s other spo...
LIBBY – The basketball fun is not over yet for the Lady Hawks. Putting an exclamation point on a season chock full of feel-good wins, the Thompson Falls Lady Hawks swept to the District 7B tournament championship last week, defeating rival Eureka 39-28 in the title game in Libby Saturday night. And the feel-good season is not over yet as coach Chadd Laws and his determined Lady Hawks now set their sights on an even bigger prize at the Western B divisional tournament in Hamilton. As the No. 1 s...
Taking care of their District 14C business in Ronan, the Hot Springs Lady Savage Heat now turn their undivided attention to the Western C divisional tournament in Frenchtown this week. Winners of second place in the district tournament after falling 48-32 to Charlo in the championship game Saturday night, coach Richard Jackson and his Savage Heat, now an impressive 17-3 overall for the season, will face West Yellowstone in the first round of the Western C tourney Thursday. Completing one of the...
LIBBY – Finishing fourth in the District 7B tournament is not the end of the world for the Thompson Falls Blue Hawk boys, in fact it could represent a new beginning, a fresh start on reaching potential post-season glory. With the Hawks looking at new horizons in this week's Western B divisional tournament in Hamilton, which coach Jake Mickelson and his Hawks will enter as the No. 4 seed from District 7B, the Hawks think they have a realistic shot in their next big game. Not anticipating a m...
