'78 championship team gathers for reunion

The first and only Whitefish High School girls basketball state championship team recently held a 30-year reunion celebration for their 1978 Class A title win.

On Dec. 2 of that year, the Lady Bulldogs easily overpowered the Malta girls 54-31 at the state tournament in Laurel. The team, with seven seniors, lost only one game that season — to Class AA Great Falls.

“The two years before, we had taken second at state, so it was really special to finally win it,” said Terri Maddux-Benedict, who was a senior guard on the championship squad. “Three years in a row, we were contenders. We only lost five games in three years.”

Maddux-Benedict said she doesn’t remember a whole lot from that December evening except that the game wasn’t really difficult.

“It wasn’t a tough game,” she said. “It didn’t seem that tough. Most of the kids had played on this team for three years. It was a lot of fun. That was in the days when we would climb up and cut the nets down at the end.”

When the Whitefish girls returned home by bus the following day, their fellow students had built a “No. 1” ice-sculpture in front of the middle school.

The team gathered again at Whitefish High School on Dec. 20 to celebrate the glory of that season and relive some memories.

“Quite a few of the girls still live in this area,” Maddux-Benedict said. “Nine of them, including me, live close by. Colette Beausoliel came from Guam, Julie Leverson came from Olympia, Wash. Barb Gordon Conners came from California, Karla Judge came from Missoula.”

Some of the women hadn’t talked for a long time, Maddux Benedict said, but when they got together it was like no time had passed at all.

“We had a lot of fun,” she said. “We went to Sherwood’s, we had a good visit at the school. We went over some of the old posters, pictures and old programs. The cheerleaders and coaches came, too, as well as some of the kids that were in our class. We talked about everything — what you can remember and what you can’t. We all have families now.”

The Lady Bulldogs, coached by Craig Audet that year, were as dominant a team as Montana girls basketball has ever seen. They handily won the Western A divisional title in Bigfork before the state tournament, and were never behind in the state tournament games.

Assistant coach Colleen Sullivan is now an assistant volleyball coach for Whitefish, with a few more championship banners on her resume in that sport.

“It was great to see everyone,” said Sullivan, who has been coaching with Whitefish since that season.

“We just had a great group of people,” Maddux-Benedict said. “We all got along well, and everybody knew what their job was. Everybody was a good athlete.”

Maddux-Benedict is a member of the Bulldog Booster Club, and they recently decided to start doing reunions for all the state championship teams for Whitefish High School.

“It happened to be the 30-year reunion for our team this year, so it worked out,” she said.

It was a special moment when the ‘78 Lady Bulldogs, whose title banner adorns Whitefish High School gym, took the court during the home game for the ‘08 Lady Bulldog’s match-up against Polson last Saturday.

“It brought back a lot of memories,” Sullivan said. “It was really neat.”