HAVRE - For the first time in seven years, Big Sandy is sending a boys basketball team to the Northern C divisional tournament at Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls.
To give some perspective, that is more than half a lifetime ago for the youngest members of the team.
Pioneers head coach Thomas Dilworth had seen a Big Sandy program fallen on hard times from afar while assisting with the Fort Benton program.
"Watching Ryan Roth starting as an eighth grader, I saw this fearless kid who was about 4-foot-nothing," Dilworth recalled. "Other guys were just beating up on him and he was taking it."
That kind of tenacity caught his attention and played a role in his decision to accept the opportunity to coach at Big Sandy two years later.
Dilworth also respected his father's advice when weighing whether to leave an established and thriving program.
"He said ... 'It's completely something else to build one,'" he recalled.
In his first season at the helm for the Pioneers, Dilworth's team finished with the same 3-17 record they had the previous year. Marginal improvement could be measured as the average game became a 67-46 defeat when it stood at 71-45 a year prior.
A bigger jump came last year with notable benchmarks like a .500 record in District 9C play and a winning overall record of 11-10. A broken arm sidelined Brock Proulx in untimely fashion and contributed to an upset loss against North Star in the district tournament opener. Yet a run there would have shown a rebuild running ahead of schedule.
"This is the year I knew we can do something special with them," Dilworth said. "I'm so happy for those guys that they get that experience to go play on that big court with those big crowds."
Many a time this season, the plan could have been undone by injuries, illnesses and agonizing losses. Brock and his brother Parker were missing from pivotal stretches due to new injuries and reaggravated ones. Kade and Kody Strutz missed games. Big man Clint Darlington had to overcome sickness entering the district tourney. The Pioneers lost winnable close games at Box Elder and hosting Chester-Joplin-Inverness while at less than full strength.
"We have had a saying: Adversity builds character," Dilworth said. "They could have easily folded and had excuses. Legitimate excuses. But they kept fighting and believing.
"I mean, the heart of Parker Proulx and Brock Proulx. Clint was phenomenal this weekend. When he gets going, he's a machine. They deserve it as much as anybody who's in the divisional this year."
A recap of the Pioneers' 3-1 run through the 9C consolation final:
Big Sandy 53, C-J-I 39
The third-seed Pioneers opened the tournament Wednesday with a rematch against sixth-seed C-J-I, who shocked them in the regular season finale on their home floor.
Big Sandy came out as an energetic force determined not to be upset again.
The Pioneers amassed a 29-13 lead at halftime led by 12 points from Darlington and 9 by Roth. Yet the Hi-Line Hawks maintained their modus operandi of battling back. A fast break lay-up by Bryce Kammerzel drew C-J-I within a 42-34 margin early in the fourth quarter. A one-two punch of Darlington and Strutz taking it to the hole ultimately shut down the comeback effort. Darlington led all scorers with 21 and added a game-high 14 rebounds. Roth added 16 points and Strutz contributed 8 points and 7 boards.
With 1 minute, 34 seconds remaining, Dilworth emptied the bench and eighth graders and freshmen gained their first playing time in a 9C tournament. Cooper Taylor grabbed his first two career points in the tourney with a perfect trip to the free-throw line and Big Sandy advanced to the semifinal.
Caden Woods led C-J-I with 11 points and 9 rebounds.
Chinook 74, Big Sandy 34
The Pioneers came ready to play Thursday and in the early going, challenged a two-time defending champion and second-seed Sugarbeeters squad who started slow a night earlier before pulling away convincingly from Hays-Lodge Pole.
With 6:12 to go in the second quarter, Roth's three-pointer from the top of the arc drew Big Sandy within a 23-20 margin. The Beeters responded by firing off a 20-0 run that ended any doubt about who would advance to the championship game against Fort Benton.
For the only time in this year's 9C, an opponent found a way to frustrate and contain Darlington, who finished with 2 points and 7 rebounds. Chinook won the battle on the glass by a dominant 49-28 count.
"You can't beat Chinook if you don't rebound and you don't get back (on defense)," Dilworth said immediately following the contest. "Foul trouble ... took us out of the game mentally. We got frustrated."
Ethan Bell scored a game-high 22 points for the Beeters. Reese Elliot added 18 in the low post and hauled down a whopping 19 rebounds, with 5 blocked shots.
Roth led Big Sandy with 15 and Strutz added 10 points.
Chinook advanced to the final, where Fort Benton prevented a three-peat with a 49-38 edge over the Beeters.
Big Sandy 74, Box Elder 65 (OT)
Only one of 24 boys and girls basketball games played at the 9C across three days required overtime to decide it. This was it.
The fourth-seed Bears jumped to an early 9-0 lead on the early game Friday. Dilworth said he thought about calling a timeout "but I looked out and thought, 'We're going to fight through this.'"
The Pioneers, now facing a loser-out situation on the consolation side of the bracket, kept their heads cool and stormed back to a 16-14 lead at the end of the first quarter. Big Sandy led by as many as 12 and held a 46-38 edge going into the final period.
Box Elder demonstrated their ability to score in bunches come the fourth quarter.
"They penetrate the ball as well as anybody in the tournament ... especially with Tyrus LaMere," Dilworth said. "It was like a boxing match. They would hit and we would have to hit back."
In the fourth quarter, Big Sandy traded too many missed free throws for lay-ups on the other end. In overtime, the Pioneers remained perfect from the line and made the extra period a bit anticlimactic.
The elder Proulx returned "and without Brock in that game, I don't know if we beat them," Dilworth said of the added defensive presence.
Darlington led all scorers with 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting from the floor and had a game-high 17 rebounds. Roth chipped in 16 points and Strutz added 15. LaMere led Box Elder with 23 points. Big Sandy shot 53 percent from the floor and held Box Elder to just 37 percent shooting.
"I don't think I've coached in a game that's been more fun and exciting," Dilworth said, adding many "tears of joy" were shed at the end of the victory.
Big Sandy 45, C-J-I 30
The emotional win against their closest rival placed Big Sandy in a winner-advances, loser-out consolation final Friday night against the Hi-Line Hawks. The teams met for the third time in six days.
The scrappy C-J-I team had to play without center Caden Woods, injured in a hard-fought 48-42 win against North Star to get his team to the far-left side of the bracket.
"We knew they would make some adjustments and run some zone against us," Dilworth said.
The Hawks' box-and-one defense succeeded in containing Roth to a degree, as he finished with just 8 points. Big Sandy led by just 20-18 at halftime but built up a larger lead in the third quarter, allowing the Pioneers to "pull out and force them to play man-to-man," Dilworth said.
With Big Sandy dictating their foes' strategy, C-J-I could not catch up.
"They have no quit and they're a well-coached and disciplined team," Dilworth said.
Strutz had game-highs of 17 points and 4 assists. Darlington shot 6-for-8 and hit both his free throws for 14 points and hauled in 11 rebounds.
Kyle Harmon led C-J-I with 12 points.
The Pioneers (13-9) tip-off the divisional tournament with a 4 p.m. Wednesday matchup against 8C third-seed Centerville (11-11). The Miners upset Denton-Geyser-Stanford twice in their district tournament at Great Falls High School to clinch their spot. DGS won a pair of close games against Big Sandy but Dilworth thinks the Pioneers have some advantages that could negate the transitive property.
"With Centerville, there's not a lot of size, so I think we can create some mismatches," he said. "They have Carson McGinness (a 6-foot senior guard) who can hit with Steph Curry kind of range."
Dilworth anticipates opponents will utilize C-J-I's strategy of box-and-one against Roth.
"We will probably see (teams) key on him," he said. "But they're going to have a hard time containing everybody."
A win puts Big Sandy in the quarterfinal against 10C champion Heart Butte at 5:30 p.m. Thursday. A loss means a loser-out matchup at 8 a.m. Thursday with the loser of the Fort Benton-Simms game.
In the Pioneers' last divisional appearance, legendary coach Roy Lackner was still on the sideline and the team advanced to state despite just a 12-8 record.
If history is to repeat itself, the Pioneers' path could include a semifinal rematch with Chinook.
"We've got a really legitimate chance to get to that semifinal game," Dilworth said. "Then we would have to figure out how to get it done against Chinook."
