Belt girls win Northern C title for 7th straight time
The Belt girls’ basketball team won its seventh straight Northern C Divisional title here at Four Seasons Arena on Friday night.
“It’s crazy,” Belt head coach Jeff Graham said. “We’ve played in this thing I think nine times out of 10. I don’t think it will sink in for a while. It’s pretty special. People have just kind of come accustomed to it, but you talk to former players and it’s just tough to get to this thing. It’s pretty special.”
The Huskies clipped Roy-Winifred for the fourth time this season, this time by a 47-29 score in front of 2,000 spectators.
The three seniors on Belt’s roster – Sara Anderson, Kerstyn Pimperton and Kassie Hoyer – have advanced to the divisional all four years of their high school career.
They’ve won the championship every time.
“It’s incredible,” Anderson said. “It’s a once in a lifetime thing, actually. It’s pretty cool.”
There will be no challenge game. Roy-Winifred is headed to the state tournament next week in Belgrade. The Outlaws are 19-5, with four of those setbacks coming to the Huskies.
“I’m excited,” co-head coach Mauri Elness said. “I think it might be a rematch at state … You never know. Anybody can beat anybody on any given night.”
Belt and Roy-Winifred, both members of District 8C, tangled twice during the regular season and once in the finale of the district tournament. The Huskies won all three by double digits.
“We were really nervous coming in,” said Graham, whose team is looking for its fifth state title in six seasons when they arrive in Belgrade. “Trying to beat a team a fourth time is tough. Each time you play it’s tougher and tougher. They are starting to take things away from us and they did a good job defending us tonight.”
Standout junior Dani Urick totaled 11 first-half points and Graham’s Huskies (23-1) found the cylinder on six 3-pointers in the opening 16 minutes, building a 30-20 halftime lead. Urick finished with a game-high 17 while Anderson added 11.
Anderson’s 3-pointer from the right wing with 30 seconds left in the third gave Belt the 15-point advantage, 39-24, heading into the fourth.
Roy-Winifred’s Keyara Bahnmiller had six first-half points and Brietta Boyce tallied five for the Outlaws, who finished the final 14 seconds of the first half on a 5-0 spurt to pull within 10 at intermission. Bahnmiller finished with a team-high eight points.
But their offense failed to find any sort of rhythm after that, concluding the game at 32 percent from the field, as both teams slugged their way to the final horn. Bahnmiller split a pair of free throws early in the third to creep the Outlaws within eighth, but that was as close as it got.
“You can’t let them have a lead at all,” Elness said. “They’re tough. They hit threes like no other and if you let them hit some threes, big shots early on and they get ahead of you, they are tough to come back on.”