LODGE GRASS — Don’t look now, but the Lodge Grass boys basketball team is 12-0.
The 2025 Class B runner-up reloaded by bringing nearly its entire roster back, and the Indians are certainly looking to be playing in the season’s final game yet again.
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“We just want to get back to the championship game. One game at a time, but we just work at it every day at practice," head coach Tyson Gros Ventre said.
Gros Ventre is in his second year as the head coach, but in all reality he’s been with this crew for years, as he also coached them throughout junior high. There’s a certain level of trust and comfort that’s been built through the years.
“We're really big on trust. Everything we do is with trust. I know everybody in here puts up the same amount of shots as I do at practice," senior JJ Bends said.
“It feels pretty much like a dream, you know? I'm glad that I'm able to coach these guys. Having them in junior high and seeing how tough they were, and from them playing together in junior high and elementary they have a chemistry that works. That's the best way to put it," Gros Ventre said.
This crew isn’t only hungry to get back to the state title game, they want to also join the Lodge Grass teams they watched growing up as legends in the community.
“That motivated them being little seventh and eighth graders watching their older brothers play in the state championship," Gros Ventre said. "I was their junior high coach then, their eighth grade coach, and I told them then, 'When you guys are in high school you need to work hard and try to get that state championship.'"
Lodge Grass has played one of the tougher schedules thus far in Class B, racking up wins over the likes of St. Labre, Lame Deer, Three Forks, Big Timber, Columbus and Wyoming Indian, which is one of the top 2A teams in the Cowboy State.
"I told (athletic director Dee Pretty on Top) to give us a good schedule. When our schedule came out, I told the guys we were going to have a tough time, but work hard. We started open gyms in the summer to get ready for the season," Gros Ventre said.
The Indians put their unbeaten record on the line again this weekend with games at home against Huntley Project and on the road at Columbus.
