From the Yellowjackets to the Red Dog

Libby’s 2003-04 boys basketball season was one for the ages. It began with an opening-weekend loss and ended with about the most epic championship game you could imagine: A 96-89 triple-overtime win over Belgrade, on the Panthers’ home floor.

This reporter saw the Loggers play their first game at the State A tournament, a hard-fought 60-48 win over the Sidney Eagles. When both the Eastern A teams lost that first day — Belgrade beat Glendive in yes, overtime — the Billings Gazette sent me over to Butte just in case Forsyth won the State B (the Dogies fell in the title game to Fairfield). 

Those that didn’t stick around Belgrade missed a classic. Five seniors led the Loggers, including scoring machine Kyle Stantus. Junior Aaron Sutton ran the point. Libby went 23-2 and got its second state championship. The first came in1966, when a guy named Marc Racicot suited up in the blue and gold. 

We talked to several of the main characters about the 2003-04 basketball season, which really began years before. 

Kyle Status: The team I grew up with. ... we had 15 years playing basketball together. In elementary school our parents would drop us off and we’d play basketball for five hours. That was my childhood growing up. Everybody that asks me about my childhood, I say, “We played basketball.” That’s how we got so good. 

Brady Turk: That’s true. We loved to play basketball. Different times, maybe, but that’s what we did. There wasn’t a lot to do besides play sports and have fun together. 

Mitch Mohr: We didn’t take anything for granted. Our practices were sometimes more intense than the games we played. And we had a couple really good coaches (Kevin Peck and Paul Stantus) back through middle school that never let us take the easy way out. 

Coach Wally Winslow: We saw them coming. I took over in 1998-99, and these kids at that time were middle schoolers and like any other coach, you have fingers in all levels of your program. The thing we felt pretty confident about is that none of them were going to go anywhere. The parents were all entrenched here, and we kind of hung our hats on that. 

Winslow, a Troy native, was in his sixth season as head coach after several years as an assistant. His fifth season ended with a third-place trophy at State; the Loggers graduated two players off that team, which had won the Western A. 

Stantus: Wally was good. What I liked is he sat us all down at the start of the season and said, “Hey, guys, this is our year. We’re not settling for second place. It’s first or nothing.” 

Winslow: I was an assistant in 1996 and we played Billings Central (for the State A title) and we played six guys. The big advantage for us (in 2003-04) is our sub-varsity teams were really good. And so our practices — oh my gosh. We’d take first five, second five and they were just going at it. Every day. Our practices went 12 deep. 

Jake Swartzendruber: Coach Winslow, he was excellent. I remember being in middle school and he would show up and watch some of our games. That meant a lot. Then also, while playing for him, his strategy and accountability were excellent. “Early and often” was a quote he used to say. “Let’s go get them, boys, early and often.” 

The season began inauspiciously enough, with a win over Hamilton and a loss to Stevensville, when the Yellowjackets’ Travis Browne converted a three-point play late in overtime.  But from there until divisionals, the Loggers were balanced, steady and unbeatable. 

Blaine Baker: I don’t think anybody really felt like their role on the team is inferior to any other. Kyle could go off a game and hit for 30 or 40 points, and Kyle never made us feel like our role was less important than his. It was a strange chemistry that we had, and it all just kind of worked. I think a lot of it came from Wally. In those practices everyone was important. Everyone was expected to give the same effort. I think that’s what made us good, you know? It’s what allowed us to keep winning. 

The Loggers kept winning right up until the Western A Divisional semifinals, when defending state champion Columbia Falls knocked them off. 

Winslow: We had a lot of battles with Columbia Falls, and we played them well that season. But they got us and we had to come back through the loser’s bracket. A lot of things can go wrong and a lot of times good teams don’t make it. 

Sutton: They were always a powerhouse. Their coach (Cary Finberg) was an absolute genius. 

Winslow: Everybody is stressed out and bummed out in the locker room. And Aaron Sutton said, “You know coach, after we lost a game earlier in the season, we won 17 in a row.” He looked at everybody in the locker room and said, “We’ll be all right.” 

Turk: I don’t remember super specific details but I think we used that loss as fuel.   

The Loggers had to win twice Saturday to make it to state. Sutton had 19 points and Swartzendruber had 10 points and 13 boards in a 63-50 win over Ronan in the morning; that evening they beat Bigfork 51-44 with Stantus getting 12 points and 12 rebounds. Mitch Mohr had two clinching free throws with 14.4 seconds left, and Libby was headed to Belgrade and a first-round game against Sidney. The Eagles had 6-foot-6 Terren Hillesland inside and high-scoring guard Jace Sullivan. 

Winslow: It was a little harder to scout back in the day. We traded film and the scouting report on Jace Sullivan was sag off him little bit, he’s good at the rim and not a great shooter.  And then he came out and hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter. I called time and Mitch Mohr said, “Hey coach, I don’t think that scouting report was very good.” It was pretty funny. So we adjusted. 

The final was 63-50, and set up a semifinal with Havre that went to the final buzzer: The Blue Ponies’ Cory Brothers had a good look at a game-tying three that bounced high off the back iron and over the backboard. Libby won 53-50 — Mohr and Swartzendruber had 14 points each — to get into the title game. 

Stantus: I try to go back and think about it. The game before, to get us there, I had a terrible game. Cory Brothers got locked in and Jake had an incredble game. And then the championship game I had a better matchup and I had a game. That’s how we played. (Brothers) was an incredible basketball player. We battled, and he got the best of me, but we won. 

All that was left was the title game, or so the Loggers thought. Then their bus broke down on the way to a pregame dinner. Eventually a replacement bus was found: It was Belgrade’s.  Winslow drove it. 

Winslow: The bus driver had to stay with our old bus that had broken down. I drove logging trucks for so many years, when I was in college and when i was first teaching.   

Sutton: Our bus broke and their bus came and picked us up and took us to the state championship game and we played them, at home, for the state championship. 

Winslow: Our itinerary got all screwed up for Saturday. We ended up at the China Buffet at Belgrade. Two hours before game-time. 

Stantus: All you can eat Chinese. I think that’s hilarious. Now that I’m almost 40, I think: You took us to all you can eat before the biggest game of our lives? 

Baker: It didn’t faze us. We were in such good shape, it didn’t matter. 

Belgrade came to play. Caleb Salsbury scored 32 points, including a three — after an offensive rebound of a missed-on-purpose free throw — to force the third overtime. Up 40-33 early in the second half, the Loggers fell behind, 52-49 going to the fourth quarter and were down by seven late in regulation. Stantus, on his way to 41 points and 16 rebounds, drained a 3-pointer to force the first OT. 

Winslow: We’re down three and everybody on the planet knows who’s going to get it and what we’re going to do. The kid from Belgrade, Mike Bell, played pretty good defense. But Kyle just rose up — he could really leap, holy cow — and he rises up and buries it. Big shot, man. 

Turk: I think it had a little rattle to it, and went in. It’s easy to say now, but I think the whole team was confident. You never know if it’s going to happen or not, right? But everyone was so confident in each other. Just like Kyle taking the shot, I knew it would go in. He’d shot it over me multiple times. I think we all just had confidence and trust. It wasn’t shock or surprise, it was, “OK. Let’s win this thing.” 

The game, of course, was far from over. Salsbery forced a second overtime, and Belgrade blocked a shot at the end of that extra period. Now it was 85-all. Baker fouled out in the first overtime causing Winslow to take off his jacket. Meanwhile Turk was getting big minutes. 

Baker: I would say that (coach) was very collected and controlled. I think internally he could get a little worked up. But he was well composed most of the time. 

Winslow: Brady had a monster game in the state championship. We got in foul trouble and he was amazing for us. 

Swartzendruber: He’s actually my best friend on this planet. He’s an incredible guy. 

Turk: I just accepted my role as what it was. Other guys fouled out and it was important for the team to fill that void.  Just move forward and give the other team a run for the money. We weren‘t going to quit. There was no other option. 

Baker: It seemed like we should have taken it away in the second OT, but I don’t know. We were winning that season, but it wasn’t like we didn’t have close games or tight situations. I don’t think any of us thought, when that shot forced the second OT, that we were in trouble. I don’t think any of us were rattled.   

Libby seized momentum a final time with Stantus’ third 3-pointer of the game. The Loggers led 92-87 with 2:12 left.  Moments later Sutton converted his sixth steal of the game into a breakaway layup. He finished with 21 points. Mohr had 11. 

Swartzendruber: Just an incredible roller coaster.  It comes down to us having two stellar players in Kyle Stantus and Aaron Sutton. Stantus had over 40 points in the state championship and Sutty Boy had 20. 

Sutton: I remember the lights. When you play in front of a crowd, you remember how bright the floor is. 

Stantus: Big shoutout to Aaron. He was the piece that we missed the whole time. We never had a true, legitimate point guard like Aaron. He was incredible. He could handle it, distribute the ball and run the offense. He was different, you know what I mean? 

Swartzendruber: You have to give credit to Belgrade, too. It felt like a college gym. It was packed. After the game my brother got pushed by a cop for throwing toilet paper and my dad came unglued at that cop. (Laughs) My dad was not having that. 

Baker: It was a big deal to the town of Libby. We came back into town and the whole community was lining Highway 2. We went back to the high school and everyone gathered at the gym. Then we had a little party a few weeks later with the 1966 team, and reminisced.  

The party was at the Red Dog, which Mohr’s parents Bruce and Lisa owned for 40 years. There was no Racicot, which would have been cool for Baker: He grew up in the same house as the former Montana governor. “His name was carved in our little shed door,” Baker noted. But it was a well-attended party that the 2004 Loggers remember few other details from. 

It’s kind of the same with the season, and the final game: It’s a blur. Better to let Coach have the last words. 

Winslow: “We’re playing in a hostile environment,” Winslow, now retired, said. “You know you’re fighting everything. You’re staying in hotels. We’re eating Chinese food before the game, the coach is driving the bus, and you’re thinking you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities you get.” 

For the record, Havre beat Sidney 64-48 for third place. 

Winslow: We call it a no-doubter. We deserved it. We beat all the best teams.