It was another great year for Bozeman Hawks athletics. Any way you stack it up, the school topped Class AA, and the proof comes through in our rankings. Bozeman dominated to once again win the MontanaSports.com all-sports championship.
We gathered results for every Montana High School Association-sanctioned sport throughout the school year and handed out points to any team that finished in the top eight at state tournaments. State champions received 10points, second place received seven points, third place was given six points, and so on, down to one point for an eighth-place finish.
After tallying up the totals, Bozeman once again took the top spot. The Hawks’ final margin of victory fell 6.5 points short of last year’s dominance, but no one came close to the Hawks.
Bozeman started the year with state titles in girls golf and boys and girls cross country. The Hawks capped it off with a seventh-straight girls tennis crown in May, and, in between, they put up points in nearly every single sport. They finished in second place in seven state competitions and took third place two more times.
The same two schools once again battled to the final weekend for second place. This time Billings Senior held off a fast-charging Missoula Sentinel by one point. Senior’s pair of tennis titles in the second-to-last week of the competition year (the Broncs tied for the girls title with Bozeman) gave the Broncs a healthy lead. But Sentinel scored 22 points between girls and boys track and field and softball over the final week. A fourth-place finish in girls track and field kept Senior barely ahead of the Spartans.
Missoula Hellgate made the biggest jump in the standings from last year, moving up from the seventh spot to fourth place. The Knights once again won championships in boys soccer and boys and girls swimming, totaling half a point more than fifth-place Helena.
Overall, not much changed when rating the Class AA schools in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17. Three schools finished in the exact same place as last year. Other than Hellgate, no other school gained or fell more than two places.
We will reveal the MontanaSports.com Class A all-sports champions on Wednesday, with Class B following on Thursday, and Class C on Friday.
2017-18 CLASS AA MONTANASPORTS.COM ALL-SPORTS FINAL STANDINGS
1. Bozeman – 116.5
2. Billings Senior – 84
3. Missoula Sentinel – 83
4. Missoula Hellgate – 56.5
5. Helena – 56
6. Kalispell Glacier – 50
7. Billings West – 46
8. Great Falls CMR – 41.5
9. Helena Capital – 37.5
10. Kalispell Flathead – 32.5
11. Great Falls – 32
12. Billings Skyview – 19
13. Missoula Big Sky – 13.5
14. Butte – 13
