BUTTE — After the sudden and tragic loss of Montana Tech head golf coach Lee LaBreche, a familiar face stepped in to guide the Orediggers for the rest of the season.
Former Montana Tech golfer Sean Ryan took over as interim head coach. Ryan was a member of Tech’s golf team from 2012-16, where he was a two-time Daktronics NAIA scholar-athlete and three-time academic all-conference honoree. Ryan also made headlines last summer when he played nearly every golf course in the state of Montana in his “Montana’s Longest Drive” project.
As natural as the game of golf comes to Ryan, adjusting to running the program in the midst of the postseason is something he’s taking day by day. There is still an old friend he wishes could be by his side during this transition.
“There’s definitely been a lot thrown at me in the last month or so. Many times in Portland the last couple days something would happen, even something I would laugh at, I’d want to call Lee,” said Ryan. “So that’s the biggest change, not having somebody there to talk to and run things by.”
The Frontier Conference championships are April 15-18 at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix, Ariz.
