Mission middle school football goes undefeated

ST. IGNATIUS - There's plenty of football talent coming down the

pipeline for St. Ignatius.

ST. IGNATIUS - There's plenty of football talent coming down the pipeline for St. Ignatius.

Their middle school football team just wrapped up an undefeated 8-0 season against several schools from Lake County and other western Montana schools.

Three times during the season, the team scored over 40 points.

"We mixed it up," head coach Dan Durglo said. "We primarily ran it, but threw it when we needed it."

Durglo said that one of the biggest wins of the season was a victory over Ronan.

"Ronan is a big game," he said. "Typically they have more kids than us and more size than us."

The Bulldogs had eight 8th graders, 13 7th grades and three 6th graders on the team.

Since school is obviously the most important thing, Durglo said that they would keep the team at the study table until 4 p.m. every day. It's helped keep the kids focused and eligible to play. The number of players on the roster stayed high throughout the year.

"The kids responded very well," he said. "For the most part, that really paid off."

The football players did well in the classroom and on the field, and were focused in practice.

"They had a hard work ethic, they approached the game with kind of a workman-like attitude," Durglo said.

Durglo said that they try to prepare kids mentally for the game of football in high school, and to learn to trust their teammates. While they do run a similar offense to the high school team, they're not completely alike.

"We do appreciate the flexibility to do what we need to win," he said.

And they certainly did a lot of that.