DILLON — The Dillon boys basketball team's lone loss of the season — a blowout 80-47 non-conference home defeat to Butte High before Christmas — might have seemed like a deflating way to get the 2024-25 season rolling. But that early gut-check ultimately set the Beavers on a winning path.
"We wouldn't have been the team we were without the Butte High Bulldogs, they put it to us," said second-year Dillon head coach Jeff Edwards. "We referred back to that Butte High game a whole lot."
The lessons learned from that loss spurred Dillon on to win its next 21 straight games — rolling to an undefeated record in conference play, winning all three of its Western A contests and first two State A games by comfortable double-digit margins and then outlasting Lockwood 51-46 in the championship as the Beavers claimed back-to-back Class A crowns and their 12th overall title in program history.
"It's been a dream for so long. I think when you're in the moment, you're just enjoying it and celebrating," said senior Kyler Engellant, who will play for hometown Montana Western in the fall. "It didn't settle in until maybe a day or two afterwards so now the happiness of winning a state championship is sinking in. It's a mix of emotions — my career is over but we ended it on a high note."
For Edwards, who was an assistant under legendary head coach Terry Thomas before taking the reins prior to the 2023-24 season, he's felt an obligation to maintain the excellence of this storied program.
"You want to hold the rope, you don't want to be the person who drops it," he said. "You don't want to be the person who lets down the community, that lets down the program. When you go to bed at night that's a pretty heavy burden. So you need to make sure that you work your rear end off, that no stone is left unturned, and that at the end of the day you have done everything in your willpower to help the Dillon Beaver program continue its success."
One of biggest catalysts that propelled the Beavers to a repeat title was the play of its senior class, including top scorer Carter Curnow, who will join the Montana State football program in the fall. He missed the first three games of the season — including that loss to the Bulldogs — as he recovered from a dislocated shoulder suffered during Dillon's football quarterfinal loss to Lewistown.
The sting of not repeating as football champions after winning it all in 2023 and "a mentality of just trying to get back after it" fueled Curnow and the Beavers as they locked in on repeat championship aspirations.
"That made me just a little hungrier to come back," Curnow said of missing those three opening games. "One of those things where it's tough sitting out and watching.
"(The loss to Butte) kind of woke everybody up, like, 'We gotta get going if we want to make a run at this thing.' So I think it was kind of a wake-up call and made everyone a little more hungry. It was a new year, new team and we were gonna go do the same thing."
