Dianne Moser’s record chase takes new shape at Tongue River High School

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Last month, we looked at Tongue River girls basketball coach Dianne Moser’s chasing of an interesting, and unknown, milestone — the state record for victories as a Wyoming high school basketball coach.

That title belongs to Okie Blanchard, who won 706 games in his coaching career, but then came out of retirement for one season to coach Hillsdale in 1969. No one knew Hillsdale’s record in 1969, though, leaving the state’s total victories chase a mystery.

However, thanks to some helpers in Laramie County, we have the answer.

And Moser still has work to do.

Jeremiah Johnke at the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne, working with Barry Ward at Burns High School, found that Hillsdale’s boys won 12 games with Blanchard as head coach in 1969. That puts Blanchard’s state-best victory total at 718.

Moser enters this weekend with 710 career victories. The Eagles (13-5) have four regular-season games remaining — against Sundance on Friday, against Lovell on Saturday, at Wright on Feb. 20 and against Big Horn on Feb. 21. Tongue River has already beaten Sundance, Wright and Big Horn this season but has not yet played Lovell.

The Eagles would need at least two victories, and maybe three, at the East Regional tournament to qualify for state, where another three games are possible.

If Tongue River wins out, Moser, who told the Casper Star-Tribune this year is her last, will finish her career with 720 victories — two more than Blanchard.

And now we know, for better or for worse.

–patrick

Dianne Moser nears state basketball coaching record — we think

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After starting the season 5-1, Tongue River girls basketball coach Dianne Moser now has a career record of 702-205.

Moser will probably break the state record for basketball victories this season, regardless of gender, a record held by longtime Cheyenne Central boys coach Okie Blanchard.

But exactly when Moser will break that record? No one knows for sure.

When he retired from basketball coaching after the 1958 season, Blanchard had 706 or 708 career victories, depending on the source; his loss total is either 126 or 127, again depending on the source. Blanchard also came out of retirement and coached Hillsdale in 1968-69, a season that isn’t counted in those career totals. No one who I’ve contacted has been able to find Hillsdale’s record for that 1968-69 season.

For what it’s worth, I tend to believe Blanchard had 706 career victories entering the Hillsdale season. The number 706 was the total cited upon his retirement from coaching (well, his first retirement) in 1958.

Blanchard’s career spanned three-plus decades with stops at Glenrock, Cokeville, Rock Springs, Natrona and Cheyenne Central, with a two-year stint at the University of Wyoming in the middle of all that, too. The citing of 708 total victories came out only after he returned to Hillsdale, prior to the start of that season.

Hillsdale High School closed after that 1969 season, and — to the best of my knowledge — Blanchard’s second go-round of basketball coaching ended after that one-year stint in Hillsdale.

So the number Moser has to beat? Blanchard’s 706 plus Hillsdale’s 1968-69 season.

She’ll get it, probably this season.

For now, though, we can’t celebrate Moser’s accomplishment at the moment… unless someone finds Hillsdale’s record from 1969…

–patrick

Droughts and streaks: Wyoming high school basketball state tournament; or, why Big Piney is my new favorite team

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Now that the boys and girls basketball teams from my alma mater, Midwest, have been knocked out of postseason contention, I’m searching for a team to support during this week’s 1A-2A state basketball tournament.

And I’m going with the Big Piney boys for no other reason than statistical anomaly.

The Punchers have the chance to break one of the state’s longest streaks in the first round of the tournament on Thursday. Big Piney hasn’t been to the state tournament’s semifinal round since 1982, a streak that will end if the Punchers beat Pine Bluffs on Thursday.

With the Class 2A and 1A state basketball tournaments scheduled this week, and the Class 4A and 3A regional tournaments also set, now is a good time to look at some interesting patterns, like Big Piney’s, that have emerged the past few years in Casper — or, in some cases, have emerged during past few decades.

Oddly enough, Big Piney’s opponent, Pine Bluffs, has a similar semis-less streak going. The Hornets haven’t been past the quarterfinals since 1995, a mark that’s just outside the state’s top 10.

Whoever wins, I officially promise to join the winner’s bandwagon and celebrate the end of the streak. After all, the boys team with the longest semi-less streak — outside of Glendo, Cheyenne South and Normative Services, which have never made it past the first round — is my hometown Midwest Oilers. The last time Midwest made it to the semis was 1953, more than 60 years ago. Midwest has made 22 state tournaments since then, and has even won a few games, but has never made it past the quarterfinals.

The Kemmerer girls have a chance to break a streak that’s similar to Big Piney’s boys; the Ranger girls haven’t advanced past the quarterfinal round since 1986. Kemmerer faces Southeast in the first round of the 2A state tournament on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in Class 4A, Gillette has the opportunity to continue streaks that have been decades in the making. The Camel boys, by virtue of their No. 1 seed at the East Regional, have already qualified for their 27th consecutive state tournament, while the Camel girls will need to beat Cheyenne South in a play-in game to make it to state for the 25th year in a row. Both streaks are the longest active streaks in the state.

The Camel girls, once in Casper (provided they beat South), will also be trying to make it to the semifinals for the 22nd consecutive year — by far the longest such streak in the state. On the boys’ side, Burlington needs to beat Lingle in the first round of the 1A state tournament on Thursday to make the semifinals for the eighth year in a row, which would continue the longest such active streak in the state regardless of classification.

Meanwhile, Rock River’s boys and girls both lost in state play-in games at last week’s 1A East Regional tournament, continuing long state-less streaks for the Longhorns. Rock River’s girls haven’t been to state since 1987, while the boys haven’t been since 1971 — the longest such active streaks for schools that have qualified at least once for state. The Cheyenne South and Normative Services girls are the only two active programs that have not qualified for a state tournament.

Here’s a quick look at some interesting state tournament streaks: The longest droughts, the longest qualifying streaks, the longest semifinal droughts and the longest semifinal qualifying streaks:

Basketball state tournament droughts
None since 2002
Boys
Rock River: 1971
Glendo: 1979
Meeteetse: 1990
Glenrock, Shoshoni: 1997

Girls
NSI, Cheyenne South: Never
Rock River: 1987
Glendo: 1988
Pinedale: 2000
Dubois: 2001

+++

Basketball state tournament qualifying streaks
Four-plus years (since at least 2010)
Year indicates start of streak
Boys
Gillette: 1988
Evanston: 2000
Burlington: 2006
Snake River, Wyoming Indian: 2008
Lovell: 2009
Big Horn, St. Stephens, Star Valley, Wheatland: 2010
(Lovell, St. Stephens boys did not qualify for state this year)

Girls
Gillette: 1990
Natrona: 1998
Sheridan, Cheyenne East: 2000
Tongue River: 2003
Lovell: 2005
Cokeville, Kaycee: 2006
Burlington: 2007
Powell, Rock Springs: 2008
Douglas, Evanston, Laramie, Snake River, Star Valley: 2010

+++

Basketball semifinal state tournament droughts
None since 2000
Boys
Cheyenne South, NSI, Glendo: Never
Midwest: 1953
Rock River: 1971
Hanna: 1978
Big Piney: 1982
Meeteetse: 1990
Glenrock, Upton: 1991
Pine Bluffs: 1995
Worland, Burns: 1996
Shoshoni, Lingle: 1997

Girls
Cheyenne South, Moorcroft, NSI, Chugwater, Glendo, Rock River: Never
Ten Sleep: 1979
Kemmerer: 1986
Pinedale: 1993
Big Piney, Midwest: 1994
Lyman: 1995
Cody, Riverside: 1996
Shoshoni, Dubois: 1997
Green River: 1998

+++

Basketball semifinal state tournament streaks
At least three straight
Boys
Burlington: 7 (2006-13)
Snake River: 5 (2009-13)
Gillette: 4 (2010-13)
Lovell: 3 (2011-13)

Girls
Gillette: 21 (1993-13)
Cokeville: 5 (2009-13)
Tongue River: 4 (2010-13)
Lovell: 4 (2010-13)
Snake River: 3 (2011-13)

Remember, every state tournament basketball score in state history is archived here.

–patrick

Undefeated basketball teams in Wyoming

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Many people are caught by surprise when I mention that Wyoming-football.com has the results of every state basketball tournament game listed on the website, as well.

Although the basketball results don’t paint as complete a picture as the football results do (the basketball results are state tournament only), they do allow us to see how teams who qualified for state finished their respective seasons.

With the basketball regular season starting this week, I’d like to go a bit deeper, though, and find the record of every Wyoming state basketball champion.

I have the records of all state champions since 1999, but prior to that it gets a little (OK, a lot) shaky.

One of the reasons I want to do this is to have a little fun in the offseason with this blog. I’d like to post, for example, every undefeated state champion the state has ever had. In all, I have the records for 14 girls basketball teams and 13 boys teams that have finished a season unbeaten (updated 11-28-12; thanks to Cory Griffith for his help with the Lusk info!). But I know the list is incomplete.

Here is my list to this point, in reverse chronological order broken down by gender:

Girls
Snake River 2012 (28-0)
Tongue River 2005 (23-0)
Douglas 2005 (26-0)
Big Horn 2001 (26-0)
Burlington 1998 (24-0)
Mountain View 1998 (24-0)
Tongue River 1997 (22-0)
Lyman 1995 (23-0)
Gillette 1991 (23-0)
Lusk 1991 (22-0)
Lusk 1990 (21-0)
Riverton 1984 (23-0)
Rock Springs 1980 (24-0)
Lander 1978 (24-0)

Boys
Snake River 2012 (28-0)
Big Horn 2011 (28-0)
Thermopolis 2004 (25-0)
Cheyenne Central 1991 (23-0)
Torrington 1987 (23-0)
Southeast 1981 (22-0)
Glenrock 1978 (23-0)
Mountain View 1977 (24-0)
Lusk 1969 (23-0)
Goshen Hole 1967 (23-0)
Cheyenne Central 1962 (27-0)
University Prep 1961 (25-0)
St. Stephens 1960 (28-0)

I’m also compiling an unofficial list of state basketball champs who finished the season with losing records. So far, I’ve only found two: St. Stephens boys in 2004 (11-17) and Pine Bluffs girls in 1994 (10-12).

Eventually, I do want the records of ALL state championship-winning teams, but being in Wyoming does limit my ability to research this much. … Nevertheless, it’s a project that’s been on the backburner for awhile and I wanted to put it out there to share.

First of all — do any readers out there know of any undefeated state champions that aren’t on the lists above? Post a comment below, and if you can, link to some documentation (scan of a newspaper article, for example, or a link to a site where I could verify a record). If you don’t want to post, you’re always welcome to email me information at pschmiedt@yahoo.com.

Conversely, if you happen to know the record of a state champ I have listed without a record, feel free to let me know (with as much documentation as you can provide to verify). Even if they weren’t undefeated, I would eventually like to know the records for all the state championship teams. First, double check to make sure I don’t already have the record listed, and then let me know!

Thanks!

–patrick

State basketball history

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In addition to all the football stuff I have posted on this site, I have the state basketball tournament history scores available on this site, too. Click here to check it out. A gentle reminder from yours in high school sports…

Be safe the next couple weeks, whether you’re headed to basketball, wrestling, swimming, skiing, or indoor track.

–patrick

Updates: 2010, 1930-32, coaches and basketball

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Well, the big update is done. The 1930, 1931, 1932 and 2010 seasons have been uploaded to the site. All the updates should be on all the relevant pages. If you don’t know where to start, check out the updated scoring records page and also the streaks page. I’ll have blog posts talking about the specific updates that those pages saw soon.

This site’s official total of logged games is now up to 20,814.

In addition to that, I’ve also made the following updates:

Coaches Project: In addition to adding coaches for 1930-32 and 2010, I’ve had updates for Cowley, Byron, Manderson, Hanna, Burlington, Huntley and Goshen Hole. Thanks to a few helping hands, Jerry Patrick in Burlington, Mark Bullington in Yoder and Shane Schaffner in Basin, for their help on this! Click here to see what I’m still missing.

Basketball: Mad props to someone only identified as Bill, who e-mailed me with the one score I was missing to complete my basketball tournament research — Rawlins’ 66-58 victory over Reliance in the 1953 Class A consolation semifinals. I now have listed EVERY SINGLE SCORE from the state basketball tournament, all the way back to its inception in 1918!! Yay! Thanks, Bill! (Is four exclamation points enough? No!)

Bill also caught an error I had listed in the 2000 Class 4A boys state tournament. Sheridan beat Central for the consolation championship that year. I had listed Natrona beating Sheridan for the consolation title after beating Central in the consolation semis; Central actually beat Natrona in the consolation semis before losing to the Broncs. The listing has been corrected to reflect this change.

If you didn’t know that I also list the scores from every state basketball tournament game on this site, too, well, I do. Click here to check those scores out.

–patrick

New ADM figures posted by WHSAA

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The Wyoming High School Activities Association this week posted the ADM figures for the next round of reclassification — decisions the group will make this fall to start in the fall of 2011. Click here to see them (Adobe Acrobat required).

Obviously, the ramifications of reclassification, and the new ADMs, go beyond football. The big change for fall 2011 will be the addition of Cheyenne South, which adds one more school into the jumble and presents some interesting new questions. I wrote at this time last year that the WHSAA has some tough decisions to make when it comes to South’s addition to football. The new numbers make it even more so….

Reclassification always causes some hang-ups along the line. This cycle, with South, makes it especially interesting.

For now, 4A football and conferences for the other 4A sports appear to be the most contentious subjects of reclassification this year.

In a nutshell, the WHSAA needs to decide on a number for 4A football, and every other classification decision can cascade down from there. Will 4A have 10 teams in it, like now, with South in 4A and Green River (now 12th in ADMs) bumped to 3A? Or will it have 11 — with Riverton (ADM 11th) forced in, or with Green River possibly opting up? Or will it have 12 with BOTH Riverton and Green River?

From there, deciding on the number of teams for 3A, 2A and 1A divisions will become much easier. Until then, we can’t really speculate on which teams will be in which classifications…

Oh, and one extra wrench for the WHSAA to deal with: South is not anticipating a varsity schedule in 2011, the first year of the new reclassification cycle.

This year is also the opportunity for 1A teams to decide if they want to play six-man or 11-man. Has anyone heard anything about current 11-man teams prepping for a move to six-man? Or vice-versa? Those decisions, too, will help guide the WHSAA’s decision-making for both classifications and conferences.

As for 4A conference  divisions — something that has dogged the WHSAA for the past four years, even though they try to stay out of it as much as possible and technically don’t even set conferences, only regions for regional tournaments — that gets fun with South coming in and Star Valley (ADM 13th) likely leaving to go back to 3A. It’s either really easy (Evanston, Riverton, Green River, Rock Springs and the two Casper schools in the West, Gillette, Sheridan, Laramie and the three Cheyenne schools in the East) or it’s really hard. Knowing how those discussions have gone over the past four years, it’ll be really hard.

Otherwise, everything else looks pretty straightforward for all sports except football. Star Valley with ADM 13 appears headed back to 3A for everything but football; Thermopolis, ranked 31st, will head back to 2A; and Lingle, hanging out in the 49th spot, will go to 1A for all except football.

For football, as explained earlier, the speculations about which teams might end up in which classifications is a little premature. But IF the WHSAA sticks with its 10-12-16 split for 4A, 3A and 2A, and IF no teams opt up or down, then it looks like Green River will move to 3A, Wheatland will go to 2A and Wyoming Indian will head to 1A.

(If you don’t know what ADM is, it stands for Average Daily Membership and it’s based on projected enrollment numbers. Check out the WHSAA front page to read up on that.)

The ADMs, with two-year averages (of course, you can click here and see the full numbers all pretty-like):

1. Gillette, 2,216
2. Natrona, 2,023
3. East, 1,556
4. Kelly Walsh, 1,447
5. Rock Springs, 1,397
6. Central, 1,352
7. Laramie, 1,040
8. Sheridan, 922
9. South, 910
10. Evanston, 900
11. Riverton, 777
12. Green River, 767
13. Star Valley, 734
14. Cody, 690
15. Jackson, 654
16. Lander, 502
17. Douglas, 500
18. Powell, 480
19. Rawlins, 478
20. Torrington, 389
21. Worland, 378
22. Buffalo, 345
23. Pinedale, 310
24. Wheatland, 286
25. Newcastle, 248
26. Mountain View, 226
27. Lyman, 225
28. Glenrock, 219
29. Lovell, 214
30. Big Piney, 203
31. Thermopolis, 201
32. Kemmerer, 183
33. Burns, 183
34. Wright, 178
35. Greybull, 167
36. Moorcroft, 163
37. Tongue River, 145
38. Big Horn, 140
39. Wind River, 132
40. Wyoming Indian, 124
41. Rocky Mountain, 117
42. Southeast, 117
43. Sundance, 113
44. Lusk, 113
45. Pine Bluffs, 109
46. Shoshoni, 103
47. Riverside, 97
48. Saratoga, 97
49. Lingle, 92
50. Upton, 85
51. Burlington, 80
52. Snake River, 71
53. Hanna, 71
54. St. Stephens, 70
55. Fort Washakie Charter, 65
56. Hulett, 64
57. Guernsey-Sunrise, 64
58. Cokeville, 63
59. Farson, 61
60. Normative Services, 60
61. Dubois, 58
62. Midwest, 55
63. Kaycee, 51
64. Arapaho Charter, 51
65. Ten Sleep, 39
66. Encampment, 36
67. Rock River, 33
68. Meeteetse, 33
69. Arvada-Clearmont, 33
70. Glendo, 20
71. Chugwater, 18

I love seeing the enrollment figures come out every two years — partly because where these numbers fall have a huge influence on what schools do for two years, partly because I’m a reclass nerd. Granted, enrollment numbers aren’t everything, as success is also determined by hard work, attitude, community support, etc., etc., blah blah blah. But they’re a big piece of the puzzle.

Thoughts? Ideas? Concerns? Questions? Post ’em below. I’m always down for a reclass chat.

–patrick

Updates: State basketball scores (and some Shrine Bowl)

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I finished researching the 1924 state basketball tournament, and posted it here, and now you can check out every score from every state basketball tournament, boys and girls. Well, almost every one — I’m still missing the score of the 1953 Class A consolation semifinal game between Rawlins and Reliance. Rawlins won it, but for the life of me I can’t find the score. Help!

Updates will be slower throughout the summer, as I will be concentrating my efforts on researching backward through time. I have researched through 1937, with the eventual (self-imposed) goals of reaching 1920 by the end of the summer and the 19th century by Christmas. And then I’ll be putting together that book thingy…. Keep checking this blog for more details on that project.

Newsbreak: Shrine Bowl recaps from the Cody Enterprise, Douglas Budget and Kemmerer Gazette.

–patrick

Updates: Goshen Hole, Burns, Saratoga… seeking a Hulett coach… and state basketball scores

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The late 1960s were a crazy time in the southeastern corner of Wyoming. Goshen Hole, the precursor to what is now Southeast, started its program in 1966, and Burns followed a year later. I spent a big portion of this week trying to track down more information on the first seasons of these two programs and found a couple games to update.

I added two games to Burns’ first season, both losses to the Pine Bluffs JV squad — 27-20 on Oct. 3 and 41-26 on Oct. 18. (These two losses extended Burns’ winless streak in that span to 24 games, a change updated on the streaks page.)

I also found the score for Goshen Hole’s 54-19 loss to Harrisburg, Neb., on Sept. 30, 1966, knocking it off the missing games list in the process.

My research also turned up two more new games, courtesy of the Byes Project. I added Huntley’s 33-6 loss to Lyman, Neb., sometime between Sept. 12-16, 1967 (added to the missing games list because I couldn’t pin down a date or a location) and Midwest’s 32-7 victory over Glendo on Sept. 3, 1965.

I also took care of two missing games for Saratoga’s 1955 season. I found the score, date and location for Saratoga’s 18-12 loss to the Rawlins JV on Oct. 4 and the score for Saratoga’s 13-0 loss to the Laramie JV on Oct. 13.

Coaches Project: I didn’t add any new coaches, but I did fix a couple discrepancies where I had two coaches coaching at two different schools in the same season.

I updated Green River’s coach in 1969; it was Chuck Shelton, not Jerry Hart. I had Jerry Hart listed as coaching in both Green River and Star Valley in 1969, so I double-checked and Hart was in Afton while Shelton had the reins in Green River.

I also ran into this problem with Rand Klatt, who I had listed as coaching both Pinedale and Hulett in 1965. I double-checked, and Klatt was in Pinedale that year. So now I’m looking hard to find out who Hulett’s coach was in 1965. So far, no luck. If you know, leave a comment below!

Basketball: I have updated the scores I was missing for the state basketball tournaments in 1923, 1925, 1929 and 1930. The years 1925, 1929 and 1930 didn’t need much research done for them, but 1923 had to be built up and researched basically from scratch. The year 1924 still need some additional research, but I hope to have that completed within the next couple weeks. We’ll see…. Click here to see this side project, every score from every state basketball tournament (except, obviously, for 1924).

–patrick