State A hoops tourney still slated for Butte, same with divisionals

Butte will remain the home for class A postseason basketball.

The class A basketball tournament is scheduled for the Butte Civic Center, though a day will be added to the schedule so crews can clean the facility between events, The Montana High School Association has said, unless there’s some coronavirus issue between now and March.

For divisionals, on Monday schools in the west by an 8-4 vote decided to also have the tournament in Butte, with the boys playing at the Civic Center and the girls at the MAC.

But there will only be two tickets per player per team, which means only about 40 fans per side. Teams won’t be able to watch other games after they play, which will mean a lot of downtime for players, noted Columbia Falls coach Cary Finberg.

At state, the plan is to allow up to a maximum of 25% capacity of the facility but no more than 500 fans per teams in larger facilities or whatever the lower limitations imposed by the local county health departments would be.

There is also a cap at basketball games on cheerleaders — no more than 12 allowed.

For fans, each site must provide a minimum of two tickets per suited player for both home and visiting fans. Schools will determine distribution criteria and must sell the tickets and provide names for check off and contact tracing for the host site. No more than the maximum can be distributed, and tickets must be distributed equally for home and visitors.

Leftover tickets at schools cannot be redistributed to other schools. Complimentary tickets will be provided for coaches, players and managers per current MHSA policy. Administrative tickets will be provided per current MHSA policy.

For state swimming, there will be two fan tickets per swimmer.

For state wrestling, minimum of two, maximum of four – depending on site capacity.

The state A wrestling tourney will be held in Miles City at the Custer County High School. The state swim meet will be separated, with class A-B together, though a venue hasn’t been selected yet.

The district music festival will be done virtually.