Maybe it was a weird form of climate change.

After all, it was double-digit below zero outside, and inside the threes were not raining down like they have all season for the St. Regis Tigers.

That may be as plausible an explanation as any for the headscratchers of the Tigers’ two games and out appearance at the Western C Divisional basketball tournament in Butte this past week.

The top seed from the 14C after a solid performance in the District tourney, aided by the return of one of their two big guns in junior John Pruitt, St. Regis ran up against a pair of teams they seemed well-suited to handle except for one warning sign...tall trees ahead.

The height situation first reared it’s ugly head in the Tigers’ opening round game with Lone Peak High from the combined 11-12 C Districts. The Bighorns feature a roster with five players listed at 6-1 or taller. And that may have been a factor in their 75-48 win over St. Regis Thursday afternoon at Butte’s Maroon Activities Center.

Junior James Roe is the tallest tree in the St. Regis “forest” listed at 6-2.

Blaming it on height may well be a stretch, but saying it was the cold air was not a more realistic explanation because thankfully, especially in Butte during the winter, basketball is played indoors.

But a strange link does appear when the Tigers’ next day, loser-out opponent is examined following their 51-46 win over St. Regis that ended the Tigers’ season and tournament hopes Friday morning. The connection? Darby lists five players 6-2 or taller.

Whatever the reason, and basketball can be a head scratcher of a game, St. Regis’ magic season came to an end.

The year in which senior Caleb Ball, the team’s only senior among a sea of upcoming and talented freshmen, sophomores and eighth graders, set a new school scoring record, was not expected to end in such a fashion.

In their opener versus Lone Peak, Ball was subject to some intense defensive pressure on a day when his normally deadly three-point shot was just not there. That’s one of basketball’s strange oddities but a real one indeed.

The Bighorns took advantage of their rebounding edge to build an 18-6 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Tigers got things rolling in the second quarter when they played Lone Peak basket for basket thanks to the shooting of Pruitt and promising eighth grader Conner Lulis, both of whom scored 16 points to share team scoring honors for the game. The Bighorns held to a 35-22 lead at the end of the first half.

Quarter number three saw Lone Peak increase their defensive and offensive efforts, outscoring St. Regis 21-14 on their way to a 56-38 lead with one quarter to play. The Bighorns added seven more points to the lead in the fourth quarter to coast to the easier-than-imagined win.

The win boosted Lone Peak to 15-10 on the season and moved them to the tournament semi-finals. With the loss, St. Regis dropped to 18-5 on the year and was bumped to the consolation round where they met up with Darby in an all-Tiger event.

St. Regis defeated Darby at the beginning of the year, 44-42 in the Hamilton Tip-off tournament.

But Darby had improved over the months of the regular season, coming into the game with a 15-6 season record.

Both teams' defenses were on full display in the opening quarter, which ended in a 9-9 tie. Darby then managed to outscore St. Regis 15-12 in the second quarter to take a narrow 24-21 halftime lead.

However, Ball, who had been held to six points by Lone Peak, began finding the range and going to the free throw line with success, helping keep the Darby Tigers in striking distance as the game moved into the fourth quarter and Darby holding a 38-32 lead at the end of the third period.

The two Tigers battled back and forth over the final eight minutes of play but St. Regis could not overcome the narrow deficit as Darby scored several timely baskets with time ticking away.

Ball scored 17 for the game to lead St. Regis, which also got 13 from Lulis. Darby’s Cullen Duggan scored 18 points to lead all scorers.

Ball, who will graduate this Spring and attend Montana Western on a football scholarship, is the only graduation loss for coach Jesse Allan and the Tigers, albeit a big set of shoes he leaves behind.

Pruitt will return for his season along with Lulis and three other starters, most of whom are sophomores.