Ronan beats Bigfork for first win of the season

Zach Urness - Leader Staff

There is a first time for everything.

And for the Chiefs, last Friday brought a few first times. It was the first win of the season for the team, the first win for new head coach Dan Sward and really, the first time the Chiefs showed what they could do if they played a whole game.

Ronan celebrated their homecoming with a battering the Bigfork Vikings on a chilled and rainy night, winning 48-21 behind five touchdowns from quarterback Mike Fisher.

"It feels awesome," said Fisher after the game. "We've said all along that we're a good team, so to come out and show it with a total team effort, especially tonight, was huge for us."

While the five touchdowns were impressive, Fisher, along with head coach Dan Sward, gave a lot of credit to the offensive line.

"It was a lot of fun to run and pass behind our O-line tonight," said Fisher of a group that includes Frank Swan, Tomy Parker, Mike Crawford, Dylan Ivins and Bridger Wayman. "They dominated up front all night."

"The offensive line did a wonderful job," added Sward, noting that running back Nick Courville ran for 139 yards behind them. "The scoreboard might not always show it, but they have done a great job all season."

The Chiefs, who have shown signs of good play all season, finally put together a whole game—especially on offense, where they scored in every quarter and rolled up 480 yards of total offense, 353 on the ground and 127 through the air.

"It was nice to see," said Sward. "The kids have been working very hard this season, so it was nice to see them rewarded."

Fisher got Ronan rolling early with a 16-yard TD run, and then the Chiefs exploded for 26 points in the second quarter.

Makenzy Keltch—who was crowned as homecoming king at halftime—got Ronan moving downfield with a 41-yard run and Nick Courville punched in the touchdown from two yards out to give the Chiefs a 12-0 lead.

Micky Cheff grabbed an interception on the Vikings next drive and, after a long Fisher-to-Keltch passing play, the Chiefs brought themselves down to the Bigfork 11-yard line.

And than, as if they really needed it, Ronan broke out a little magic. Fisher took the snap, rolled right and handed the ball off to Nick Courville—or at least that's what the Bigfork defense, the fans and even the sportswriters thought happened. It turned out that he faked the hand-off and hid the ball so well that he could have done cartwheels into the end zone and nobody would have noticed. Regardless, after the PAT the Chiefs took a 19-0 lead.

"The play was called a zone lead option," explained Sward. "We had been running the ball with Nick pretty well and he (Fisher) did a good job of making the read and fooling the defense."

Ronan took advantage of another Bigfork turnover with 2:27 left in the half, picking up a fumble and than scoring their fourth offensive touchdown via a quarterback option play to Marcus Schiele that went for 14-yards.

Bigfork's offense finally came to life and scored a quick touchdown, but they failed to recover an on-side kick, and gave Ronan's razor sharp offense another chance. With fantastic field position, Fisher completed a 25-yard pass to Matt Detwiler, moving the ball inside the Bigfork 30. On the next play, the Chiefs ran a play that started out looking like the lead option running play, but this time Fisher pulled up and found a wide-open Jamie Engeldrum for a 25-yard touchdown, ending a quarter in which the Chiefs scored 26 points and took a 33-7 lead.

Nick Courville began Ronan's second half drive with a 50-yard run and Keltch had another big catch, before Fisher added his fourth touchdown of the night on a 5-yard run which gave the Chiefs a 39-7 lead that all but ended any Bigfork designs of making the game a close one.

With the Blitzkrieg put on by Ronan offense it's easy to forget about the job done by the defense, which stymied the potent Bigfork rushing attack all night.

"The defense played much better," said Sward. "The main thing that we improved upon was tackling. We've really had trouble with that this season but on Friday we really came out and tackled well. We got into their legs and stopped them. That was a key to beat this team because they can run on you if you don't wrap up."

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the second half came at the beginning of the fourth quarter, when Ricky Leceau—who had a big night on defense as well—lined up for a 40-yard field goal attempt. Field goals are not especially common in high school football to begin with, and a 40-yarder on a freezing night with a wet field is a difficult task. But like just about everything else on this special night in Ronan, the kick stayed true, sailing though the uprights and flying just barely over the cross-bar, bringing the lead to 42-15.

"Ricky's been doing an awesome job," added Sward.

Fisher added his fifth touchdown of the night in the fourth quarter on a 16-yard run that was more icing on the cake than anything else.

The Chiefs will look to built upon their momentum this Friday at home against Libby. It won't be an easy task, however, as the Loggers, who established themselves as tops in the Northwest A conference with a 48-7 routing of Whitefish last weekend, bring with them the number two ranking for class A schools in Montana. They also sport a potent offense that averages better than 40 points per game.