Tournaments adjusted for COVID-19 situation

The tournament season will be a little different in 2021.

Thanks to the lingering effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, high school sports have been forced to make adjustments, ever since March of last year, when state basketball tournaments across Montana were called off on championship Saturday of the state tourneys.

Although that doubled the number of normal state championship teams, it also provided a hint about what post-season basketball may look like in the 2020-2021 school year.

In District 7B, the conference tournament has been abandoned all together at least for this year. Based on final regular season standings and a one-game playoff between the No. 4 and No. 5 finishing teams, the four remaining teams in 7B will be seeded into the Western B, set to be played in Ronan March 4-6.

In District 14C, the tournament will be played remotely, with the higher seeds hosting, starting next Tuesday.

In the boys and girls tournaments Tuesday, the No. 3 seeded teams will host the No. 6 seeded squads, and the No. 4 teams will host the No. 5 teams. The semifinals will then be played at the No. 1 and 2 seeded schools Thursday, and the consolation and championship games will be played Saturday.

Final seeding position was not set heading into the final week of regular season play, but Clark Fork has clinched the No. 1 boys seed and Charlo the No. 1 girls seed.

If necessary, Monday night challenge games will be played to determine which two teams from each tournament advance on to the Western C divisional tourney, which was originally scheduled to be played in Butte February 23-27.

Wrestling season will also overlap with the basketball tournaments this year due to the late start of the season because of COVID-19. The newly formatted Western B-C divisional tournament is set to be wrestled in Cut Bank February 26-27, and the State B-C will be held in Shelby March 6-7.