Vikings remain in the driver's seat after homecoming win over Seeley
When Charlo High School football Coach Mike Krahn first became the coach of 8-man football, he was quickly given a reality check that a shutout in 8-man just wasn’t “realistic” given the fast-paced nature of the game.
So Krahn modified his expectations and came up with an arbitrary number of 12. Each time the Vikings allow only 12 points, they receive a sticker.
For the second consecutive week in a row, the Charlo defense earned its sticker defeating Superior 66-12 to cap an exclamation point on their homecoming Friday night at Charlo High School.
Krahn said his team has developed a “serious intent” towards achieving its goals.
“Our kids have been watching film and putting in that kind of time,” Krahn said. “They have been successful in executing and putting a game-plan together. Everything that we do has been hard work and preparation.”
The Vikings, who are in control of their own destiny as long as they win out, would like to get a couple of home playoff games, according to Krahn.
“This is one of those things I think when we start to see our goals materialize,” Krahn said. “We always have the goal to try to win the divisional and we want to go as deep in the playoffs as we can. Our kids realize ‘hey, we have a good team’ and because of this, we can have loftier goals.”
In Friday’s game, the Vikings out gained Superior by 182 total yards amassing 445 total yards of offensive production on 42 snaps.
Quarterback Landers Smith was 6-of-7 for 111 yards and four touchdowns. Smith connected with Jared Doty for a 22-yard touchdown pass, Zane Hafliger on a 17-yard touchdown pass, Trent Dennison for 39 yards, and Brady Fryberger for 27 yards.
Other touchdowns included Tyson Petticrew connecting with Doty for a 19-yard touchdown late in the first quarter.
On the ground, Smith contributed 181 yards on nine carries and scored four touchdowns.
Though Krahn says his team has a “serious intent,” he also understands the importance of his team having fun during their win-streak.
“We always put some stuff on the board before we play on what we expect and we always write on the board “have fun,” Krahn said. “We work too hard to not enjoy our success. We get so intense on our game plan and so focused on everything, I think ‘wow, I don’t even know if we enjoyed or not.’ It becomes so intense. We have to remember that football is a game and players only get to play for such a small window in their life that they should go there and have some fun.”
Because Arlee High School won its homecoming game against Seeley, that keeps the pressure on the Vikings to keep winning if they want to secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Vikings and Warriors will face each other for the season finale of the regular season on Oct. 24.
“It’s nice to have so many weapons (on offense) and I am glad I don’t have to prepare against us,” Krahn said. “It makes it really hard for defenses to try to key on just one guy. It helps that our kids understand our scheme and that we try to spread people out using our speed, and scoring 60 points gives our defense some leeway.”
Bulldogs in search of first win against Copperheads
The Mission football team lost its fifth consecutive game 48-0 to Deer Lodge Friday night at Mission High School football stadium.
“They came out and jumped on us early, and we just couldn’t get much going offensively,” Bulldogs’ Coach Jake Bosley said. “We had a hard time competing with those specialty guys. They are just well-coached and they played a good game.”
Despite losing by a large deficit, Bosley said he felt he took some positives away from his team’s performance.
“We did some good things offensively,” Bosley said. “We struggled on our defensive line but we got four total sacks. That is a big improvement that we were putting pressure on the quarterback and I don’t think we’ve done that in all our other games combined.”
Bosley said he felt pieces of his secondary are “improving.”
“They are coming along really well,” Bosley said. “We have some freshman in the defensive secondary, and we were able to make adjustments at the half and slow down their defensive unit. We did some positive things. We need to just try to focus on the passing game and improve on moving the ball a little bit.”
This week, Mission will travel to play Anaconda High School and Bosley is “optimistic” about his team’s ability to pull out its first victory of the season.
“You know it’s a good opportunity to come out and play ball, and hopefully we can show up and execute,” Bosley said. “We are excited. It’s a big game for us and if we can pick up a win, that would be pretty big.”
Warriors run over Seeley
The Arlee High School Warriors' football program defeated Seeley 76-20 to put an exclamation point on their homecoming Friday at Arlee High School. Statistics for this game weren't available as of press time.