BOZEMAN — Gallatin High won its first Class AA girls basketball title on Saturday night, defeating chief rival Billings West 66-63 in overtime.
Each team entered the postseason with identical 18-1 records with their only loss coming to each other. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the title game went down to the wire.
But it didn’t look very competitive early.
The Raptors jumped out to a 5-0 lead and exploded for 27 points in the first frame to lead 27-16. Makayla Coleman scored 14 in the first eight minutes alone. But after falling behind by 13 in the second quarter, West slowly chipped away at the lead closing it to 33-25 at half.
"I was feeling great, I was relying on my teammates," Coleman said. "They would drive in and kick it out at the right time."
Midway through the third quarter, West tied the game on a Reagan Soucy 3-pointer. Near the halfway point of the fourth quarter the Bears took their first lead of the game, 50-47, on a 3 from Brooklyn Pierce and grabbed all the momentum.
West led 56-52 with 51 seconds left, but Saydey Perry hit a layup to cut the lead to two. Following a steal, Jada Davis got the putback to go to tie the game at 56 with 17 seconds left.
West turned the ball over in transition, and Davis had a chance to win it in regulation but her floater in the lane was off the mark, and the game went to an extra frame.
“That floater felt good and afterwards I was kind of disappointed,” Davis said. “But then afterwards I knew I had just four more minutes of overtime and I had to lock in and be there for my team. So I put it aside and carried out my duties."
Gallatin controlled the overtime period, denying quality looks for West and hitting 6-of-8 free throws to ice the game. West only managed 3-of-6 free throws in the final frame and couldn’t overcome playing from behind.
"At practice, we do a lot of drills where we're down, and we can't let the offense get scores,” said Coleman. "We knew we had to gut it out on defense and it had to come down ourselves."
Following the boys AA title in 2024 and a volleyball title in November, Gallatin is quickly turning into a dominant force in Class AA athletics in just the school's fifth year in existence.
“My freshman and sophomore years we didn’t play at state, so this year we just wanted to prove we’re good enough to win this championship,” Davis said. “It’s only our fifth year as a program and we’re better than anyone else out there."
Davis led all scorers with 21 points, including 16 in the second half and overtime. Makalya Coleman recorded 19 points and nine rebounds, while Ave Odegard added 12 points and eight rebounds.
Pierce led Billings West with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Soucy added 14 points and Reese Enderson chipped in with 11 points and eight rebounds in a losing effort.
Earlier Saturday, the Missoula Big Sky girls held off a furious late rally from Butte to claim a third place trophy after a 62-58 win in the State AA tournament consolation final.
The Eagles led by as many as 20 in the third quarter but were outscored 28-15 in the fourth. The Bulldogs cut the lead to three, 61-58, with 29.8 seconds left but a potential game tying 3 from Ellison Graham was off the mark. Kenzie Schmitz went 1-for-2 at the line to push the lead to four and ice the game.
Avery Decoite led the Eagles with 18 points, five rebounds and five steals. Schmitz scored 16 points with Kadynce Couture contributing 14 points and seven rebounds.
Butte’s Brityn Stewart led all scorers with 23 points and 11 rebounds in the loss. Sophomore Cadence Graham scored 16 points for the Bulldogs with her sister Ellison Graham, an eighth grader, posting nine points off the bench. This is the first state trophy for Big Sky since 2009.
