March 20, 2019
Dear Montana Western Faculty, Staff, Students, Alumni, and Friends, Good morning! Please join me in loudly and proudly congratulating the Montana Western Women’s Basketball Team on last night’s great accomplishment!
We have the rare opportunity this afternoon to welcome home a history-making group of young women, our first NAIA Division 1 National Champions!
Arrangements are being made to escort the team bus to campus and welcome them on arrival at the BARC parking lot around 2:45 p.m. today. If you are teaching an afternoon class and this timeframe coincides with your break, please consider coming out to cheer on the Bulldogs with your students. Please visit our Facebook page for more details.
Thank you for cheering on the team last night and for supporting them all the way along this journey. Even though the championship was in Billings, our team had the home-court advantage, by far. The Billings Gazette reported that 16,000 people packed the MetraPark, most of them wearing red and black.
Hearing that many people cheering “We are Western” is something I hope we will not soon forget. For the last few nights, we have truly been the State of Montana’s championship team.
Dillon, Beaverhead County, students, faculty, staff, alumni, family and friends were all well-represented in the arena, and our phones were lighting up with texts from supporters here at home and around the country. In Billings, we could hear the cheers all the way from the Swysgood Technology Center watch party.
Thank you to these fabulous student-athletes for representing Montana Western so well. Thank you and congratulations to NAIA National Coach of the Year Lindsay Woolley, Assistant Coach Tony Nakashima, Athletic Trainer Zach McCarthy and Student Assistants John Schladweiler, Bryce Cuchine, Jordon Hunt and Madi Periman. Thank you, Athletic Director Bill Wilson, Assistant Athletic Director Dave Glass, and Sports Information Director Casey Parrott. Thank you to our team and athletics program sponsors.
And again, thank you all for supporting our students and for being Montana Western!
Best wishes,
Beth