Column: We've run out of teams... not really

Blaine Baker, Libby Class of 2004, didn’t know what was wrong with him at the Western Divisional basketball tournament his senior year; he just knew he was miserable and had white sores in his mouth and throat.

“Now that I’m a dentist, I think I know what it was,” Baker said last week. “Primary herpetic gingivostomatitis. That’s a mouthful. 

“I remember being at the hotel and just lying there. My fever would get too high and Wally would say, ‘You need to get in the swimming pool, take some ibuprofen, and get that fever down.’ “ 

“Wally” was Wally Winslow, who came into that season with a sub.-500 record coaching the Loggers, but with a loaded team coming off a third-place finish at state.  

Then that 2003-04 team went 23-2, as noted in last Sunday’s oral history about that season. It culminated in an epic triple-overtime State A championship, which Libby won 96-89 over Belgrade. 

Winslow is still amazed. 

“You don’t want to be that guy,” he said. “But that was the most amazing basketball game. Just because there were so many times we had to make plays. 

“I’ve watched the game film — obviously — more than one time.” 

What I didn’t know, until Baker mentioned it, is that the team would come over and rewatch it. It’s a homegrown ESPN Classic. 

Baker is a dentist in Billings these days. Brady Turk, a key reserve, is a carpenter who once sailed around on a fixed-up sailboat for five years.  

Mitch Mohr is building roads in Alaska, as a project manager for Grant Construction. Jake Swartzendruber spent 21 years in the Navy, and is back in Libby near his good friend, Turk. 

Then-junior point guard Aaron Sutton has been working as a police officer in Polson for seven years. Tournament MVP Kyle Stantus is a mortgage broker. 

I regret not getting a call into Vance Vincent, a key player (“He brought in leadership and composure,” Turk said. “It was actually Vance who broke my nose in practice,” Mohr added). 

I also regret not seeing the final in person — which, selfishly, is part of the reason I do these. We’ve covered the 1988-89 Flathead Braves, the 1990-91 Whitefish Bulldogs, the 2002-03 Columbia Falls Wildcats, the 1984 C-Falls WildKATS, and the Brave Brawler wrestlers of 2008.  

I’m running out of teams... Almost. Whitefish won its last football title in 2015; Glacier won AA in 2014. Bigfork won the 2010 State B football title.  

I didn’t see any of those titles happen, and it’s plenty of fodder for an article that if even one person likes it, that’s good enough for me.  

One guy who really liked this last one was there — Winslow.  

“I felt like all of us, the team, were all in my basement watching game film and playing ping pong,” he wrote. 

We’ll keep these going. 

Fritz Neighbor can be reahed at 406-758-4463 or at fneighbor@dailyinterlake.com.