GREAT FALLS — Last week the North Country girls fell to Scobey in the District 3C championship game. The loss wasn’t all that surprising given that the two teams played a pair of close games in the regular season, but it was notable for another reason.
It marked the first time the Mavericks, a co-op of Saco, Whitewater and Hinsdale, lost a basketball game since 2022 — a streak of 73 straight wins, good enough for the second-longest win streak in state history and the best in Class C.
With the addition of North Country, three girls basketball teams have eclipsed 70 consecutive wins, according to Montana High School Association records. The Great Falls High girls won 72 games from 1980-83, which stood as the record for over 30 years until the Fairfield girls won an astounding 120 games in a row from 2010-15.
The longest boys winning streak in MHSA belongs to the Scobey Spartans with 57 wins from 2019-21, which sets the girls teams apart.
MTN Sports spoke with representatives of all three teams to learn what it takes to make history and how they managed the pressures and expectations that come with unprecedented success.
What does it take?
While coaches would love to tell you that win streaks and successful teams are born from tactical brilliance and coaching acumen, that's often not the case. For the state's winningest mentors, it was about being in the right place at the right time.
Dick Kloppel coached the Great Falls High girls from 1975-87 and compiled a record of 223-52, including a staggering 135-9 mark from 1978-84 and the 72-game streak which was a national record at the time.
So, what was the secret?
"There's a heck of a lot of luck involved and the luck goes in many directions," he said. "First of all, you have to have the luck of having the right combination of players and the right number of players and the right kinds of players over an extended period of time. I would often just roll the ball out and get out of the way."
And the Bison boasted plenty of fine players in Kloppel's tenure, including Natalie Streeter and his daughter Katy (Kloppel) Deffe who went on to play at Montana and Houston, respectively. At one point, 17 of Kloppel's former players were playing college basketball. But talent didn't always win out.
"The other part of the luck is you're going to be in some close games and you have to have the luck of the bounce," Kloppel said. "Because you can easily lose a close game that will break a streak at 40 or 50 wins or whatever number."
Just ask Fairfield. While the Eagles would often roll through their regular season and district tournaments, longtime Class B rival Malta was always lurking at the Northern B divisional and Class B state tournaments.
In 2014, the Eagles needed two overtimes and a buzzer beater from Jill Barta to top the M-Ettes for a fourth consecutive championship.
Winning games is hard, winning championships is harder, going undefeated is grueling, and doing that for four consecutive seasons requires a special foundation. And head coach Dustin Gordon had that at Fairfield.
"You got to have some parents that bought into a program when their kids were young, bought into a coach, bought into a system, play a lot of basketball, do a lot of the right things and say a lot of the right things," Gordon said. "They need to support the school, support the coaches so that there's a trust that's involved."
And it takes commitment from all parties, even if it's hard and all-consuming.
"We played a lot of games, we played more games in the month of June than we played in our regular season," Gordon said. "And once the win streak started to take some life, you always de-emphasize that and focus on what you can control. So it's talent, it's parents, it's commitment, it's community."
The pressure builds
It's always more fun to win than lose. But when winning is the expectation and the sting of losing fades from memory, there is pressure on the coaches and players to perform.
Especially on teams like the 2014-15 Fairfield Eagles and 2024-25 North Country Mavericks who graduated the bulk of the upperclassmen who started the win streaks in the first place.
"If you look at our four main seniors that we lost last year, we have Teagan (Erickson) and Paige (Wasson) both playing college basketball," North Country coach Amber Erickson said about the Mavericks. "Kendall (Scheffelmear) played volleyball and basketball at Dawson (Community College) and Josie (Brown) is a track athlete. You're looking at a Class C school that graduated four college athletes. I mean, that's pretty remarkable considering our size."
So, it was even more remarkable when the Mavericks started this season 19-0, though the wins were much closer this year. Erickson is proud of the way the team exceeded expectations, even if their streak came to an end earlier than they'd hoped.
"I asked them several times throughout the season if they felt the pressure a little bit because in some of the higher-pressure games in our district, I thought at times we looked a little bit tight, but we were always able to hit some big buckets here or there down the stretch," Erickson said. "They claim that they don't really feel it, but I think they do. We might not talk about it a lot as a team within our practices, but that doesn't mean that the community's not talking about it or their parents aren't talking about it."
At Fairfield, Gordon said everyone on the Eagles sacrificed a lot in pursuit of wins.
"It was fun, but it was hard and miserable at times. It adds stress to your family. It adds stress to your job," Gordon said. "I'm an educator first, and I was a principal at the time and you're trying to juggle all those things and not do just a good job at them, but do a really good job at both. That's hard sometimes."
But more than anything, the pressure came down to not wanting to be the team that ended the streak.
Deffe was in junior high when the Great Falls High streak started and a senior when it ended. She remembers the feeling when the Bison lost to Missoula Sentinel in 1983.
"It was pretty devastating. But the devastating part, I think, was knowing that after all those years and those teams and those players, that you were on the team that ended it after standing on the shoulders of the greats," Deffe said. "And so that was tough."
Time to reset and refocus
But a loss after a long stretch of wins can be a blessing in disguise. As long as it was the right type of loss. When Fairfield lost to Choteau in 2015, coach Gordon felt relief.
"We didn't lose. We got beat. That was always something we talked about. When this ends, let's get beat. Let's not lose," Gordon said. "To me, in my mind, there's a difference. We got beat that day, and you can live with that."
The 1983 Bison felt a weight off their shoulders instantly.
"It relieved a little bit of pressure because there becomes some pressure to it. We had gotten to a point where we had started playing to not lose," Deffe said. "And there is a big difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. Sounds subtle, but it's not. And once that happened, we were able to go out and start playing to win again."
The North Country Mavericks, who still have the Eastern C divisional tournament and a potential return trip to state left in the 2024-25 season, are taking the time to refocus and, of course, reflect.
"I would say it's probably a little bit of a monkey off our back and, quite honestly, I don't think that we really had a shot at beating Fairfield's 120 wins," Erickson said. "When you sit back and you really think about it, it's amazing. It's very humbling, and I feel very blessed that I've had that opportunity to have those groups of kids go through my program, because we've had some really, really special teams."
Enjoy the moment
And that's the crux of it.
It's hard to realize how special those moments are when you're living in them. But with the benefit of hindsight and reflection, they are moments each team will always cherish.
At Fairfield, where success is so common that anything other than a state title trophy is kept in a storage closet, the streak encompassed just four banners in an entire gymnasium full of them.
"We've had a lot of winning that happened before I was here. And we've got winning going on after," Gordon said. "And I just happened to be fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time, somewhere in the middle."
Winning became normal for coach Kloppel and the Bison. But the Great Falls High girls haven't won a state title since 1982, which makes him realize just how rare a streak like that can be. President Ronald Reagan even took notice, taking time out of his schedule to visit with the team during a visit to Great Falls. That doesn't just happen.
"The further in the past it gets, the more I'm in awe of what happened, with my teams and with my kids," Kloppel said. "At the time, you're in the middle of it, and it's no big deal. But now that I look back on it, and it's something really special. So, always remember to enjoy the moment."
