The 26-0 M-ettes of 07

The Malta M-ettes have posted four undefeated records in the last ten years. The team leading the charge and showing that perfection could be had was the 2007 edition.

That team won the State B Title ten years ago on Saturday, March 2 in Hamilton. The PCN caught up with former M-ette Head Coach, Terry Lindgren as 2007 State MVP Kelly Pankratz, All State teamers Laramie Schwenke and Kylee Johnson (Denham) and All Conference selection Amber Colburn (Harms) who were all starters for the M-ettes that season.

For Coach Lindgren, 2007 would be the first time that he had led Malta to a title. It would be the first of two undefeated seasons he would post as a head coach.

"I had been an assistant coach for Del Fried for 13 years and I took over in 2000," Lindgren said. "It was very special in not just winning but it was the first time that the M-ettes went undefeated in a season. They've done it a few times since but that was the first one."

Coach Lindgren would win a total of eight state titles, six of which were under late legendary former M-ette Head Coach Del Fried.

The 2007 champions were composed of two seniors; starter Pankratz and Jessica Henderson. The junior class consisted of starters Schwenke, Colburn and Katie Lowney.

"The main catalyst of that team was Kelly Pankratz," Lindgren said. "She was just a very special guard. She just knew the game. You can coach kids all your life and you don't get one like her every day. She could do about anything, especially offensively and take control of the game when she needed to."

Pankratz lives in Colorado, where she works in outpatient orthopedics. She has a degree in Exercise Science from Dickinson State University and has since then earned a degree in Physical Therapy.

"I would just say that we played a lot of Run and Gun," Pankratz said. "We were probably one of the shortest teams in the state. We didn't have one girl that was six feet tall. Our tallest was Katie Lowney, who was 5-9."

Despite their lack of height, the 2007 M-ette team was stacked full of talent, with plenty of talent on the bench, many of which were key cogs in Malta's 2010 undefeated campaign.

"We had such a deep team," Pankratz said. "Our twelfth player was Bobbi Knudsen. She was a little freshman, who didn't play at all and she was probably one of the best players to ever come out of Malta. She's good."

Pankratz went on to do well in collegiate basketball, where she was a part of Dickinson State's 2009 Elite Eight team.

Malta had won most of their games pretty decisively, blowing out teams left and right, including games where they scored over 90 points. But the closest game they won was in the 2007 State B Semi-Finals against Three Forks, a game in which Malta won by way of a walk off free throw made by Schwenke, with no time in regulation remaining. Schwenke was fouled going for a layup with the teams tied at 34 points apiece.

"I just said, I'm gonna bleeping make it," Schwenke said. "And then I took my three dribbles, shot it and thought, oh my God it's going in and then it did."

Schwenke didn't even realize that at the moment she made the penalty shot, the game was over. Her team did as Pankratz proceeded to tackle Schwenke with a hug after regulation was declared over.

Schwenke was also a key contributor in the team's 2007 State win, scoring 14 points.

"We all wanted to win," Schwenke said. "There wasn't one person on the team that was out there for themselves. Nobody cared who scored all of the points.

The 2007 M-ettes grew up watching former M-ettes win state.

"We all wanted to win and we all wanted to win the state championship," Schwenke said. "It was always a goal of ours, having watched all of the past greats go through and it's kind of a continuous trend in Malta, the little girls watching the older kids win the state championships and you want to do that."

Schwenke went on to say that the team had many key role players as well as a will to win.

"We had a lot of grit and competitive fire," Schwenke said. "It was a ton of fun. I've played a lot of teams, with a lot of other girls but with that team there was no other option but winning."

Schwenke currently the head coach of the Harlem Wildcats, a position she had started in the 2015-16 season after being the team's assistant coach in the 2014-15 season. She lives in Havre and is currently earning her teaching degree at Montana State University Northern in Havre, where she was an All-Conference player in college. She earned her first degree as a Diesel Mechanic from MSU-Northern several years ago.

Colburn lives in Shelby with her husband Tel and their three children Scarlett, Traftom amd Scotlen.

Similar to current M-ette and younger sister Eva Harms, Colburn was known for throwing big picks.

"I used to screen with the best of them," Colburn said. "I'm not really tall, so I always had to play bigger. It was something that was never intimidating for me."

Colburn believes that their chasing greatness and ability to contend with taller teams was triggered by their defeat earlier in their basketball careers.

"It all started when we were young," Colburn said. "Laramie Schwenke's dad used to take us all over the state so we would get our butts kicked. The teams we would play would have these huge, huge girls. Once we decided we didn't want to lose anymore, we quit losing to those teams that always beat the shit out of us."

Johnson was a sophomore starter for Malta that season and she played a key role, scoring a team leading 17 points in the championship game. Johnson now lives in Lewistown with her husband Orin and son Rettick.

She graduated from Malta in 2009 and played at MSU-Billings in her freshman year but after one year transferred to MSU-Northern where she earned a Business and Accounting degree. She works as a bank loan officer.

"There was so much chemistry on that team that it was crazy," Johnson said. "We had so much fun on the floor, in the locker room, off the floor we were all really good friends."

That chemistry was evident by their fluidity on the court and their collective passion to win.

"We had stubbornness and a will to win," Johnson said. "We were in a couple of close games where it could've gone one way or the other and we were all so competitive and we wanted to win so bad that we worked together and made it happen."

She went on to say that the team spent a lot of time in the gym together, not individually but as a team.

The M-ettes were tasked with guarding a 6-2 post in the 2007 Championship and Johnson, only 5-7 stepped up to the plate.

"I had to guard her and it was not a lot of fun," Johnson said. "I was pretty feisty. I used a lot of body, boxing out and feistiness for sure."