Butte Girls open State AA Tourney against Gallatin Thursday Evening in Bozeman

Any hope of high school state basketball tournament hardware now lies on the shoulders of the Butte High girls' team as they head to Brick Breeden Fieldhouse on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman for the State AA tournament which runs through Saturday.  With the Bulldog boys and both Butte Central teams seeing their seasons come to a close last week, the Butte girls have qualified for the tournament by beating Helena Capital last Friday for the third seed out of the West.  They will face the second seed out of the Eastern AA, the Gallatin Raptors in the tournament's first round Thursday at 6:30pm.

The Raptors come into the contest at 17-1 overall with their lone loss coming to the Billings West Golden Bears in Billings on February 11th by a score of 48-60.  This avenged what would be West's only loss of the year, to Gallatin in Bozeman, 55-47 on January 17th.  The point differential was the deciding factor in Billings West being awarded the Eastern AA's top seed.  Gallatin High has 4 players averaging double-digits in scoring led by 5'7 junior Jada Davis' 20.1ppg.

Butte High is 14-6 overall and is led by sophomore Cadence Graham's 18 points per game and senior Brityn Stewart who is putting in 13.2 points per game.  The Bulldogs have been getting strong play down the stretch by juniors Franki Salusso and Emma Johnson as well as 8th grader Ellison Graham.

Tickets for all tournament sessions are available at the Bobcat ticket office at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse, charge by phone at (800) 808-5940 or (406) 994-2897 or through the Brick Breeden website.