Another Torgerson leads Shelby to title game some 30 years later
SHELBY – He doesn’t remember all the details.
It’s hard to blame him, for nearly three decades have now passed.
But that’s not the only reason his recollection of the 1988 Class B state title game is rather fuzzy.
Minutes after his Shelby football team defeated Choteau 19-14 for the state title, he was in an ambulance.
IT’S NOON on a weekday, and The Griddle diner here on downtown Main Street is filling up nicely with hungry customers.
Bill Hansell, a 1973 graduate of Shelby High, and Mac McDermott, another Shelby alumnus about 20 years his junior, are awaiting their food. A must on today’s menu: a hearty ham and bean soup.
Back in the day they both played football for this high school, so Shelby’s state championship clash with unbeaten Eureka on Saturday afternoon about four hours west of here is at the front of their minds.
“I think it’s been great for our town,” McDermott says. “It’s a lot of fun to watch. I can hardly wait for this weekend.”
Appearing in its first football finale in nearly three decades, Shelby met this Eureka team in a quarterfinal game last season. A group made up of McDermott’s family and friends loaded up several Suburbans for the long trek across the state for that one, which they will do again this weekend.
“I’ve heard we’re the underdog this weekend,” McDermott says, “but I pick the Coyotes every time, for sure. No doubt.”
The Lions beat Shelby 43-8 in that game, then captured the state title two weeks later. Sitting across the table from McDermott is Hansell, who coached these current Shelby players while they were in junior high.
"It's great," Hansell says. "They are a good bunch of kids. A bunch of good athletes all the way around. They've done it in football, been consistent in basketball. Some of them do track that do really well. Others do the golf, and they are really good there, too. It's a good group of kids. They are pretty well together all the time. It makes them tough."
THIS YEAR’S Shelby squad (8-3 overall) is known for its senior leadership and resilience, the ability to battle back and advance when for a while the chances of doing so looked somewhat slim.
“It’s just a great bunch of kids,” junior Wyatt Brusven says. “It’s a special place to be, and we have a special group of seniors that have taken us this far. They’ve done a great job stepping up and being leaders. It’s just great to be with them.”
Star quarterback Aaron White injured his knee in the first game of the season, missed the following contest Missoula Loyola and the banged-up Coyotes were stumbling out of the gates, on the wrong end of their first two contests.
Undeterred, they triumphed in eight of their next nine.
“A lot of people think we’re the underdogs,” Aaron says. “Yeah, a lot of people might think that. But I guess every game we’ve played this year we’ve kind of went in as the underdogs.”
IN THAT MEMORABLE MARCH to the state championship, the first official football crown in school history, the Coyotes, led by several standouts including halfback-linebacker Kurt Schilling, had come-from-behind victories against Shepherd and Cut Bank. But none were more timely than in that finale against Choteau on the road.
It was 1988, and the Coyotes, which entered the game at 11-0 overall as winners of the District 5B title, gained a 7-0 first-quarter advantage on a short scamper from quarterback Bob Hasquet, whose brother, Bill, was also a significant contributor at wide receiver.
But Choteau, which boasted a 10-1 record as champions out of District 6B, had J.J. Brashear and Matt Krahe, one of the most accomplished and talented tailbacks in Montana history. They were coached by Jim Judd.
Krahe tied the game during the second stanza on a 28-yard gallop.
He had 118 yards on the ground.
“Matt Krahe was a stud,” says Aron Torgerson, who was on the field that day for the Coyotes. “I roomed with him and Mitch Murray, the (Choteau) quarterback, in college. We became good friends and are still good friends. (Krahe) was the real deal.”
The Coyotes, coached by Clayton Davis, took a 13-7 cushion into halftime after Bob Hasquet located Rusty Harwood for a 26-yard connection. The lead was lost in the third quarter when Krahe found pay dirt from four yards out.
Down 14-13 in the fourth frame, the Coyotes answered with a nine-play, 80-yard drive capped by a seven-yard rush up the gut by junior halfback Jason Cole. Shelby led, 19-14, with seven minutes remaining.
LYN MARKUSON, a 1967 Shelby High graduate, is enjoying a serving of that ham and bean soup before his sandwich arrives.
He’s sitting alongside his good pal, Larry Bonderud, who graduated from Shelby a year later in 1968. Marukson said he will be listening to this weekend’s game on the radio. Just like he did some 30 years ago.
“About eight miles back in the mountains,” Markuson says. “I had a portable radio. And the reception wouldn’t come in and we go, ‘Damn!’ So I stuck it on the horse’s back. It had been snowing and been wet. And it came in like I was sitting right there watching it.”
On the other side of the room is Brodey White, chowing down on an omelet drenched in gravy and a side of potatoes. He was senior outside linebacker on last year’s squad.
This Shelby team, he says, is where they are because of the bond its senior class has formed on and off the field and the leadership from players like senior wideout Barrett Hansen, whom Brodey respected during his time with the Coyotes.
“It’s just awesome to see how much this program has come around from the past couple years,” says Brodey, who is not related to Shelby head coach Mike White and son Aaron. “We weren’t that great. I know watching middle school it was kind of hard to see. It’s great to see them turn that whole program around.”
Down the road is Shelby Floral & Gift, owned by Nicki Anderson, whose son, Jarod, is a senior on the team. Nicki's husband, Mark; mom Louise; and daughter Kendall will be making the ride over to Eureka.
Underdogs no more, Eureka seeking a Class B repeat
"Everybody's kind of been following it," says Anderson, a 1990 Shelby graduate who's on the Shelby booster club called Fifth Quarter. "And it keeps on getting more exciting and more exciting. Every year the football moms have gotten together and really spurred it on by painting signs up and down Main Street and decorating the town."
LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, on the other side of a mostly quiet Main Street is the First State Bank of Shelby.
The stores’ windows lining the street here are littered with encouraging words and signs supporting this team. Players’ names, numbers and pictures are creatively splashed on maroon signs accompanied by “Go Yotes!” and “Play Hard.”
Sitting at a desk inside First State Bank in a dress shirt and tie is Brice Kluth, who graduated from Shelby High in 1986 and was on the 1984 squad that lost to Roundup 15-9 in the title game.
“There’s a buzz,” Kluth says. “I think the buzz started when they took the win over Whitehall. After the win over Loyola, this week’s starting to get a little excitement in town, for sure.”
BRION TORGERSON sealed the victory.
He intercepted a pass in the closing seconds.
“When I picked it, somebody hit my legs out from underneath me,” Brion says of final moments of the 1988 title game, “and knocked me out. And I landed on my head, and that knocked me out. I was laying on the field and I had the ball cause when I fell I kept the ball.
“Everybody, apparently, was running around crazy and they never found me for a little bit. I was still knocked out. The ambulance had to come pick me up. I still have that state championship football today.”
Brion and twin brother Aron didn’t celebrate much that night because Brion was in the hospital with a concussion.
“So we went to the emergency room,” Aron says. “I missed all of the parade that night because we were down there for a few hours.”
Those years have special meaning to Aron and Brion, returning kicks and punts alongside their twin brother and winning a state title. Aron’s son and Brion’s nephew, standout halfback Zach Torgerson – one of the top five players at his position in the state, Brion believes – is on this year’s team.
He is a good one.
“I know our community has been behind us through this,” Zach says. “And that we haven’t been to a state championship game for football in a long time. It’s just really cool to be back. The last time we were in it my dad was there. It’s just cool to continue that on.”
BRION’S three sons – Kody, Kyle and Levi – will be in Eureka on Saturday to watch their cousin go for a championship.
As will virtually every other person with ties to the Torgersons.
“It’s really unbelievable,” Zach says. “It makes you thankful that we’re so close and that they can come to stuff like this. It makes you really appreciate it.”
Zach holds pride in his last name.
“The Torgersons have been around for a while,” he says. “It’s kind of special to be a part of it. Just to hopefully continue on the legacy.”
An estimated 25-30 family members were in Shelby last weekend for the semifinal win, including Brion’s and Aron’s brother Lin and sister Karin, two former standout athletes for the Coyotes.
Fitting everyone in for a group photo proved to be challenging.
“I’m probably more proud of him than anything,” Aron says of son Zach. “The goal as a dad, I want my kids to be better than I was academically, physically, athletically. I can say he is. All the hard work that these kids have put in since fifth, sixth grade is showing up.
“Just the resiliency of those kids. They are extremely strong mentally to keep coming back like they have. It’s basically been the last drive of each game to come back to either kick a field goal or get a touchdown to go up.”
IT’S 4:30 P.M., and the Shelby football team is practicing in 25-degree temperatures.
Music is blaring.
The Coyotes, which held practice Tuesday night in those throwback uniforms that the 1988 team used, are stretching and warming up as AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” rings from press box.
Minutes later the team is refining its tackling, running full speed at rolling tires before taking teammates down on a nearby mat.
“Wrap them up!” an assistant coach says.
ZACH, a senior who also assumes the cornerback position, secured the game-tying five-yard touchdown reception a week ago in the wild semifinal against Missoula Loyola. The successful point after attempt from the reliable and robust right leg of junior Wyatt Brusven pushed it to 28-27 with just under two minutes left.
Zach had 124 yards on the ground, and Shelby, steered by its 11 seniors, found a way to notch a narrow win, just like it had in the two previous three-point playoff wins against Bigfork and Whitehall.
“The excitement’s building more and more,” Zach says. “We just can’t wait for the game to get here.”
The playoff run has produced some nervous moments from the Shelby parents, though Aron says he’s kept relatively calm all things considered. Zach disputes this, by the way.
“You know,” Aron says, “it’s the senior moms who are actually losing it.”
He lets out a loud laugh.
A FEW MINUTES BEFORE PRACTICE, Mike White sits in his dimly lit office.
“I don’t know if it’s entirely sunk in yet,” the Shelby coach says. “We try to focus every game like it’s one game at a time. I know that’s a cliché. But most of all, we’re trying make Shelby proud. Put them on the map in the state and just let people be excited about it.”
Just like that 1988 team.
“What I see in Shelby is resilience and never-give-up,” Brion Torgerson says. “Their three playoff games, there was a point in every game, you know, most teams, I don’t care what level, would have said, ‘You know, we’ve had a good run and it’s just not our day.’ Every game they’ve had that experience and I’ve seen that. I’m just so impressed with that team. They just never give up. You look at the team and they just have this calm belief that they’re going to win.”