Looking Back in Sports: 1968 Boys Basketball Champions
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Coach Murphy get the victory ride on the shoulders of Ed Obie (left) and Jim Inman (right). That isn't a noose around his neck, its the nets through which the Sugarbeeters swished their way to become State Champions.
The local sports scene has all but disappeared due to COVID-19. In turn we have decided to take a look back at some of Blaine County's greatest sports accomplishments. As space allows and time permits we will look through our old newspaper archives in search of the brightest moments in Blaine County sports history. We begin with a look back at the 1968 Chinook Surgarbeeter Boys Basketball Championship.
Havre Sports Editor Praises Sugarbeeter Win
The Chinook Opinion Thursday, March 21, 1968
The following article was written by Vern McIntyre, Sports Editors, and appeared in Monday's edition of the Havre Daily News (McIntyre was a former editor of the Chinook Opinion):
Displaying awesome scoring powers, the Chinook Sugarbeeters completely overwhelmed the Missoula Loyola Rams 98-69 Saturday night in Shelby to capture the 1968 Montana State Class B Basketball championship. The game was played in the huge Shelby high school gymnasium before a capacity crowd of more than 4,000 fan, with the little Chinook team definitely the favorite of the fans.
The consolation game Saturday night for third and fourth places was won 62-58 by the Choteau Bulldogs over the Plentywood Wildcats.
Chinook battled to the state championship by clipping top ranked Roundup 75-71 on Thursday. Friday night in the semifinals the Beeters took out Plentywood 70-67, and by Saturday night the Chinook crew hit high gear to really bomb Missoula Loyola 98-69 for the title. In other Friday afternoon games, Polson eliminated Roundup 78-65 and Circle dropped Malta out of the meet 69-67. The second Friday night semifinal saw Missoula Loyola get into the championship game in Chinook by nipping Choteau 43-42.
Saturday a.m. in the consolation games Plentywood bumped Circle 64-62 and Choteau beat Polson 83-72.
The Circle cheerleaders were awarded the second place Cheerleader trophy and the first-place cheerleader trophy went to the Plentywood Wildcat cheer queens.
In addition to the huge state championship trophy, the Chinook Sugarbeeters were presented with the ball used in the championship game and each member of the squad received a miniature gold basketball. All other players in the tournament received participation medals. Missoula Loyola was presented the second-place trophy, Choteau the third-place trophy and Plentywood the fourth-place trophy.
Chinook 70, Plentywood 67
After beating the Roundup Panthers 75-71 in the opening game of the State Class B tournament the Chinook Sugarbeeters dropped the Plentywood Wildcats 70-67 Friday night in the semifinals to advance to the state championship game.
The Plentywood contest was a come-from-behind effort by the Sugarbeeters when they got their winning margin over the big Wildcats in the third period and then held even in the final quarter to take the win.
Plentywood jumped to a 17-11 lead after the first quarter, but Chinook closed in during the second period to trail only 29-28 at intermission. In the third period the Sugarbeeters pumped in 23 while holding Plentywood to 19, giving Chinook a 51-48 lead going into the stretch and they held it nicely to take the win.
The Wildcats had a 67-66 lead with 55 seconds to go but Chinook's Ken Harshman canned a field goal at that point to put the Beeters out in front and with three seconds left Greg Harshman iced it with a break-away lay-in.
Ed Obie took game scoring honors for Chinook as he spilled in 23 points, most of his field goals coming on his deadly baseline drive, while form the free throw line Obie dunked 11 of 12 attempts, hitting on his first nine in succession. Ken Harshman whipped in 19 points for chinook and Doug Watson had 15.
Watson took game rebounding honors for Chinook as he cleared the boards 16 times, while Ken Harshman had 12 grabs and Obie 9. Jerry Edgington and Brent Schellin played good floor and feeding games while Jim Sattleen, Gale Billmayer and Greg Harshman all came through in fine style.
Chinook 98, Missoula Loyola 69
There's an old saying, "don't stop for feed, wood, water or coal," and that's exactly the way the Chinook Sugarbeeters played it as they bombed the Missoula Loyola Rams 98-69 Saturday Night in Shelby to capture the 1968 Montana Class B State Basketball Championship. It was the first state hoop title for Chinook since 1930. The Beeters have only been to the state meet three times in the school's history but they've been a success every time they made it. In 1930 they took all the all-state championship at Bozeman, in 1947 they placed third at state in Glasgow and now in Shelby they have won the state crown again. From the start of the tournament in Shelby on Thursday the Beeters seemed to catch the eyes of the fans, probably because they were the smallest team in the meet, and by Saturday night they were an overwhelming sentimental favorite to go all the way. In the championship game the chinook club left no doubt in anyone's mind that they were true champions as they bombed Missoula Loyola from start to finish to capture the state title by that lopsided 98-69 score. Though records were not immediately available it is thought that the 98 points scored by Chinook may be a record high for the championship game.
When Loyola and Chinook squared off for the championship battle Saturday night Chinook scored the first goal but then Loyola went ahead 4-2 but that was the last time, they saw daylight as Chinook slammed to a lead and increased it in every quarter to win going away. It was 20-18 for Chinook after one quarter and 50-33 for the Beeters at intermission. At the three-quarter stop Chinook had raced out in front 74-52 and at that stage it was just about all over except for the presentation of trophies.
Brent Schellin and Jerry Edgington, Chinook's little "sparkplug" guards, fired with deadly accuracy from the outside early in the game and when the Rams came out to stop them Ed Obie and Ken Harshman went to work on the inside as Doug Watson fired the ball into them and put in layin after layin to build up the Chinook margin. Then as the Rams were trying desperately to figure out a defense Chinook Coach Brendan Murphy, an extremely cagy one, put in little Gale Billmayer, probably the fastest man in the tournament and he gave Loyola fits. Billmayer immediately grabbed a rebound from right in the middle of the big Rams, beat them all the length of the floor and laid it in to add to the route. The little speedster racked up three quick field goals while he was in the game.
Down come the nets after the championship game Saturday night. Ed Obie is supported by teammates Ken Harshman and Brent Schellin while he cuts the strings.
Game scoring honors again went to Ed Obie with 28 points and this lad also did a fantastic job on the boards in the title game, raking them for 24 rebounds, also high for the game. Schellin hit 23 points, Ken Harshman had 15 and Edgington had 12.
Chinook completely dominated both boards throughout the contest, out-rebounding Loyola 66-29, and this almost continual control of the ball was a huge factor in the runaway win for Chinook. In addition to Obie's 24 rebounds, Ken Harshman cleared 8 times, Schellin and Greg Harshman each grabbed 7, Greg Hellman pulled down 6 and Watson snatched 5.
The Chinook cheering section was well prepared for the outcome of the title game, Showering the Shelby gym with a huge cloud of black and orange confetti as the final buzzer sounded.
Sunday the triumphant Chinook team returned home as "conquering heroes" in a huge caravan which passed through Havre shortly after noon. A big victory celebration was held Sunday afternoon in Chinook.
