GREAT FALLS — Over the last two seasons the Saco-Whitewater-Hinsdale girls basketball team has gone a perfect 52-0 and claimed back-to-back Class C state titles. Dating back to the end of the 2021-2022 season, the winning streak totals to 54 games.
“It’s an incomparable feeling. We were state champions last year and it was a memorable season but being a senior especially is just incomparable,” said Teagan Erickson.
Erickson is one of five seniors on the team that helped the Mavericks achieve such greatness in the last few years. Prior to the state championship game, head coach Amber Erickson advised her team to “take a second at some point to look around and realize what you’ve done.”
During the blowout win to secure the state title, coach Erickson pulled her starters early and shared a moment with her seniors as they left the floor for the final time in their high school careers.
“Just how proud of them I am. I mean they made history. They made history each and every game this season,” said Erickson. “We didn’t talk a lot about our streak. We of course knew that this was our end goal.”
As the Mavericks look ahead to the next season and a potential three-peat, they are confident in the pieces that they will be returning. One key player will be Shelbi LaBrie who started this year as a junior and averaged just under 10 points per game during the state tournament.
“Next year I look forward to seeing some of these underclassmen try to fill these new roles because we still have pretty good talent coming up. I’m just excited to see how we play together as a team because we are going to be missing some pretty big pieces so it’s going to be fun to see who steps up,” said LaBrie.
“My bench pushes my kids every day in practice so we do get better. We lose a lot but my bench has had to play against the best defense in the state in my opinion so they’ve come a long way as well,” said coach Erickson.
