By CHRIS WALTERSKIRCHEN
Fifty years ago this coming Saturday (February 22, 1964) the Missoula County High Spartans traveled to Havre to close the regular season with their second straight 22-0 regular season mark. The Spartans were ranked 2nd in the nation among High School basketball teams, Havre was a young team with little chance against the Spartans. Havre went into a stall the first time they got the ball and kept the ball for 4 and 5 minutes at a time. Spartan stars Mike Lewis and Greg Hanson sent fans to the concession stand and spent a portion of the second quarter having a snack on the court. Things loosened up a bit more in the second half after Havre administrators bent the ear of Havre coach Bruce Haroldson. Haroldson went on to become the head coach at Montana State from 1978-83.
Twenty years ago Wednesday the Weber State Wildcats were in Missoula to take on the Griz. What should have been a 5 minute drive to the Adams Center took over a half an hour as the streets leading to the University area were blocked as fire and emergency crews raced to a massive fire at the Roxy Theater on South Higgins. Those Wildcats made good use of their time once they got to the Adams Center and decisively disposed of the Griz. Hopefully Thursday night the only thing on fire in Missoula will be the Griz shooting touch.
Lady Griz Senior Jordan Sullivan is a strong contender for MVP in the Big Sky Conference as she leads the league in 3-point shooting percentage in Conference play as well as standing 3rd in rebounding. Having a mom who played for the Lady Griz and with her uncle as Montana’s head coach the Lady Griz team has been a big part of her life. With Montana’s next win the Lady Griz will have won 500 games in Sullivan’s life–89 of which she has had a hand in.
A unique stat. North Dakota and Montana are battling for the regular season Big Sky Women’s title, but it comes to trips to the free throw lines the teams are far apart. North Dakota has attempted a league leading 439 free throws in Conference play, while Montana has the fewest attempts in league play with just 219 trips to the line.
Should the Grizzly Men sweep this coming week’s games with Weber State and Idaho State Wayne Tinkle will have his landmark 155 wins. It would be fitting to set the mark on February 22nd as 28 years ago on February 22, 1986 Mike Montgomery won his 154th regular season game at Dahlberg Arena. Twenty-five years ago Saturday Lady Griz star Lisa McLeod Tinkle became the leading scorer in Lady Griz history passing former teammate Marti Leibenguth.
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Chris Walterskirchen has been an observer of Montana sports for nearly half a century. A Kalispell native, Chris has worked in various capacities for professional and college sports organization of at various times: ranging from announcing and statistical work to the concessions and even a stint as a costumed mascot.
Chris has academic degrees in communications and elementary education. His style of sports trivia involves more than just who won and who lost, but also focuses on the obscure or human side of sports. In this blog you will learn things like the Grizzly football team has won 210 games over the 19 seasons since they have had Monte as their mascot or that UNLV is the only school that both the Griz and Lady Griz have both faced in the NCAA basketball tournament
When not following sports Chris enjoys taking care of animals of all kinds (a peacock rescue?) and reading to pre-schoolers.