St. Regis seniors reflect on their winning season

ST REGIS – It has been a few weeks since the three seniors on the St. Regis Tigers left the field for the last time as high school football players.

When they did leave the field, they and the rest of their teammates walked off as winners as the first team to post a winning record in St. Regis for over a decade. And while Gibson Lowry, Andrew Managhan and Dakota Wickham will never again don the green and yellow jersey for St. Regis, they leave behind for their teammates something much more important than what happened on the actual playing field and a winning season.

The three seniors said what made the difference this year was the attitude of the team and how they were able to work together for a common goal. Lowry said he was proud to be on a team that was able to establish what is hopefully a tradition of success.

“The fact that we were able to pull of a winning season shows how dedicated this team was,” Lowry said. “We worked and we tried and it finally worked out.”

Wickham said he thought what made the difference this year was the chemistry amongst not only the players but also the coaching staff. He said the confidence that Head Coach Rob Labrie had in his team and especially his seniors to be leaders and make smart decisions in the heat of play changed the dynamic of the team.

“We all got along and we were all willing to put in the work to get better,” Wickham said. “Guys were showing up early (to practice) and staying after to understand what we needed to do.”

Managhan said, for him, it was the tenacity of the team when faced with adversity and being down in a game. He said when the Tigers were down against Hot Springs, one of the best teams in the state, they fought back and nearly tied the game before time ran out. And even though they didn’t win that game, to Managhan it signaled a shift in how they would play the rest of the season.

“We were down by thirty, I believe, in the first half,” Managhan said. “We only lost by a touchdown. We never gave up and we fought to get back into it. Coach really accepted our insight and implemented that into our plays. That was a big part of it.”

LaBrie said, for him, it was all about the caliber of student he had on the team. He said without the hard work and dedication put in by his squad, the season could have easily gone a different way.

“I’m so proud of these guys,” LaBrie said. “For me personally, it means a lot because it shows how much they grew. It means a lot to me to see the success that they had.”

While the game of football is won on touchdowns, defense, fundamentals, practice and everything else that takes place on the field, what happened on the gridirons of Montana and Idaho when the St. Regis Tigers took the field pales in comparison with what the three seniors leave behind for the players who will come after them.

What they leave behind is a model of how it’s done. They leave behind a goal for their teammates to work as hard as they did. They leave behind a measure to live up to in the future for sportmanship. They leave behind a history of tough but fair play. Simply put, they leave behind a standard for all future St. Regis Tiger teams to live up to. And you can’t ask for more than that.