Pinnacle Bank Shootout 2024

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History of the Pinnacle Bank Shootout

The Pinnacle Bank Shootout started in 2020 and this year will mark the 4th year of the Shootout. The Tournament Director and founder, Kevin Couch is Pinnacle Bank’s VP of Commercial Lending and has been with Pinnacle Bank since 2020. The Pinnacle Bank Gillette staff assists in running the tournament by finding sponsorships for everything from the programs, the food for the volunteers and referees, to running the famous Pinnacle Bank “Money Booth.” The first year the event was held it took place at 3 separate gyms in Gillette. Since then, it has been held at the Camplex, inside the Wyoming Center where we have six courts under one roof. The tournament is run in partnership with the Wyoming Youth Basketball Association and is the major fundraiser for the organization.

The Pinnacle Bank Shootout features nearly 100 teams from SD, WY, MT, ND and NE with divisions ranging from 3rd to 8th grade for boys and girls. This event provides an estimated $500K in positive economic impact for the community via sports tourism in one weekend. Pinnacle Bank is proud to be the title sponsor for this event and we look forward to it every year.

Meet Coach Janie Rayback

(WYBA Executive Director)

Coach Janie Rayback was named as one of the top 10 players in the state of Wyoming as a senior at Star Valley High School. She earned two All-State honors and two All-District honors she was also named AllState and All-District in volleyball, and also lettered in track. She was also named the Star Valley MVP for both basketball and volleyball. Rayback is the youngest of five siblings... Derek, Hillary, Bobbi, and R.J. Her parents are Roy and Jane Rayback of Star Valley.

Coach Rayback moved to Gillette WY in 2019 to be the assistant coach for the Gillette College Pronghorns Women’s team, under then women’s basketball coach Liz Lewis. After one season with the Pronghorns, the Northern Wyoming Community College District shut down all athletics other than the rodeo programs at both Sheridan College and Gillette College. Now Rayback has returned as the first athletic director of the newly formed Gillette Community College District and has finalized the new department’s selection of coaches for the both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Between working for the Northern Wyoming Community College District and now the Gillette Community College District, Coack Janie Rayback worked for the newly formed Wyoming Youth Basketball Association as the Executive Director and coaches several teams, after the loss of the athletics program at the College. Rayback is still an integral part of the Wyoming Youth Basketball Association and their continued growth today.

Wyoming is humble, where hard work speaks for itself.

Meet Coach Liz Lewis

Coach Liz Lewis is a 2005 graduate of Churchill Country High School in Fallon, Nevada, where she was a four-sport athlete. Coach Lewis lettered in volleyball, softball, soccer, and basketball and received All-Conference and All-State in basketball her junior and senior seasons. She was also named by her high school as the Female Athlete of the Year in 2005. While at Rocky Mountain College, Coach Lewis was a two-time First Team AllFrontier Conference performer and was the recipient of the Arthur and Linda DeRosier award for Outstanding Senior Athlete. She was also named the team MVP and received Academic All-Conference honors both her junior and senior seasons in college.

Coach Lewis started her coaching career at her alma mater Rocky Mountain College as an assistant coach. She continued on by coaching at colleges such as Central Washington University, Montana State University-Northern, Miles Community College, and Dickinson State University where she was the head women’s basketball coach and sports information director. Coach Lewis then made her way to Gillette where she was the Lady Pronghorn head coach for only a year when the program was cut. Similar to Coach Rayback’s story Coach Lewis joined the newly formed Wyoming Youth Basketball Association after the basketball program was cut. With Pronghorn ball back at the Gillette College she has been hired back as the Lady Pronghorn head coach.

Wyoming is humble, where hard work speaks for itself.

Wyoming Youth Basketball Association

Where it started and where it is today.

The old Sign Boss building on Sinclair Street and Highway 59 is empty right now, but the sounds of construction echo through the building. The Wyoming Youth Basketball Association, a Gillette-based nonprofit organization, is building a full-size gym with six basketball hoops. The group is currently doing a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for equipment. When it is finished, it will be another asset in growing sports tourism in Campbell County while allowing more opportunities for young people to participate in sports.

About five years ago, Kevin Couch and Dana Miller had daughters who were playing on different basketball teams in Gillette. Both teams went down to Denver to play in a tournament, and they ended up playing each other twice. Additionally, they felt that there was not “equal opportunity for kids to sign up” for basketball, Miller said. Outside of the Rec Center’s youth basketball programs, there were not many chances for children to get on teams like there are for other sports, she added. Kevin pointed out that if you don’t start competing at a young age, its tough to compete in junior high and high school.

Everyone Kevin and Dana spoke with liked the idea of having a youth basketball organization here in Gillette. That idea was so overwhelming to them, they sat on the idea for a while.

Then in the summer of 2020, the basketball program at Gillette College was eliminated. Liz Lewis and Janie Rayback, the coach and assistant coach of the women’s college basketball team, were suddenly available. Miller and Couch reached out to the two coaches who took the idea and ran with it. Starting out, the organization offered local kids a chance to participate in basketball camps and skill sessions. This grew quickly and more than 700 kids and over 400 coaches have been involved in camps and tournaments. WYBA has now become a nonprofit organization under the umbrella of the Amateur Athletic Union, or AAU.

Now that sports have returned to Gillette College, Lewis and Rayback do not have as much time to dedicate to the organization. That coupled with the Pronghorn Center holding college basketball games again, the need for the organization to have its own gym. “It will allow the organization to schedule and plan programs six to eight months in advance,” Couch said.

Miller said Gillette is fortunate that its community leaders have invested in sports tourism over the years. Couch said it is “pretty darn impressive” how quickly some things have moved on this. From the

first day he thought Gillette could host an indoor soccer tournament in the Wyoming Center, within six months Cam-plex had specialized sport flooring. Basketball tournaments followed soon after.

The group also has expanded beyond basketball. It has worked with local volleyball coaches to develop and run an AAU volleyball program and last year it hosted a 120-team tournament that was played on 18 courts in Campbell County, including some courts in Wright. Miller said the goal of the Wyoming Basketball Association, in terms of governance, is to make the organization sustainable regardless of who is on the board.