BUTTE — Box Elder comes at you in surges and waves. Usually it's star guards Tracen Jilot and Dreyden Anderson providing the spark.
On this championship night, the Bears got a standout effort from another source to claim their second consecutive championship.
Tuarie Stiffarm-Rosette scored a game-high 26 points and picked up much of the slack to keep his team in a back-and-forth game as Box Elder escaped Manhattan Christian 65-60 to win the Class C boys basketball championship in front of a huge crowd at the Civic Center.
The Bears finished their season a perfect 26-0, and have now won 52 straight games. The Eagles closed the year at 22-3.
In a battle between programs that are no strangers to state title games, Box Elder overcame a first-half deficit to claim the program's fifth crown and beat the Eagles for the second straight year.
"I feel like I'm on top of the world right now," said Stiffarm-Rosette, who made 11 of 16 shots. "We've worked so hard to come to this moment, especially two times in the last two years."
Jilot, to his credit, fought through some early struggles to finish with 21 points. He was especially key at the foul line, making 9 of 11 free throws.
But Manhattan Christian got the upper hand early.
The teams each had only one field goal four minutes into the game until the Eagles broke out to take a 13-6 advantage after a Jack Scott 3-pointer.
A driving layup later by Scott gave Christian a 17-8 lead early in the second quarter, but a running dunk by Jilot and a blocked shot by Anderson on the other end gave the Bears a lift. After a Timothy Rosette steal and layup, Box Elder pulled within one, 21-20, with 2:22 left before the half.
A corner 3 by the Bears’ Tayshaun Seaton with time winding down put Box Elder ahead 25-23 at halftime. The defending champs were back in it.
In the third quarter the lead went back and forth. Consecutive 3s by Jilot, the second coming with 20 seconds on the clock, gave the Bears a little separation with a five-point lead, 47-42.
Jilot then heaved a desperation 3 at the buzzer at the end of the third but was hammered — the fourth foul on the Eagles’ Christian Triemstra. Jilot then made all three foul shots for an eight-point lead entering the fourth.
A dunk by Isaac Hoekema started the fourth for Manhattan Christian, but Stiffarm-Rosette got a 3-point shot to bounce off the rim and in to keep momentum on the Bears’ side.
Jilot later had a big blocked shot on the 6-foot-8 Hoekema, which was one of the more impressive plays of the night.
"I'm really going to miss coaching Tracen. He makes me look like a better basketball coach," said Bears coach Jeremy MacDonald. "He's one of the most talented basketball players I've ever seen.
"He kind of struggled a little bit offensively tonight, but he got going for a little spurt there, and then our boys stepped up and did enough to close it out."
A Triemstra 3 from the corner with 4:15 remaining in the game pulled the Eagles within 54-49, and a Triemstra drive and hoop with his left hand later kept it a five-point game. Triemstra followed with another 3 to make it 58-54 in favor of Box Elder with 2:50 remaining.
But the Bears continued to answer. Still, Hoekema converted a three-point play to trip Box Elder’s lead to 60-57 with 2:20 on the clock.
A spinning shot by Jilot with 1:32 left got it back to five points. The Bears then stole the ball on consecutive Manhattan Christian possessions, the second of which came with less than a minute on the clock.
Within the game’s final 19 seconds, Jilot made 3 of 4 foul shots to put it away.
Manhattan Christian fought foul trouble for much of the game with both Triemstra and Hoekema playing careful, which affected their approach.
"They're a talented group," Eagles coach Layne Glaus said of the Bears. "They hit some tough shots, contested shots. And foul trouble hurt us too, because we had two guys out there that were worried about getting a foul, so their defense was different.
"But yeah, like I said, they're a talented group, and we have a ton of respect for them."
Triemstra finished with 23 points to lead the Eagles, while Scott added 10. Andrew Kimm pulled down 13 rebounds.
In Saturday's third-place game, Scobey beat Fort Benton 59-35 led by Bram Handran's 17 points and 10 rebounds. The Spartans finished the year with a 26-1 record. Fort Benton, which got a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds from Kellan Diekhans, finished the year 20-9.
