Warriors prepare for remodeled conference

Last season was a rebuilding period for the Arlee High School Warriors football team.

The team, which finished second in Class C, 8-man was in the process of rebuilding after losing the majority of the key components to the 2015 team in 2016. Now a year older and a year more experienced, this Warriors team will burden the shoulder of heightened expectations as they started their first official day of practice Aug. 11.

Another major difference between the 2015 team and the 2017 team will be a change in leadership. Todd Yocum, who coached both the 2015 and 2016 teams, has stepped down as the head coach to assume a position as the defensive coordinator. Chuck Forgey will lead the Warriors into the start of this season.

“We are looking good and working hard,” Forgey said. “We had a lot of people participate and we are pretty far along on what we are doing. There are a lot of teams that really worked hard this summer with conditioning and lifting. Our juniors and seniors are doing really well in camp.”

The Warriors have narrowed their quarterback battle down to two as Lane Shall and Will Mesteth will compete with each other to be the head signal-caller. Shall is a junior and Mesteth is a senior that was a member the 2016-2017 Arlee Warriors’ state championship team.

Currently, the Warriors have no set date on when they will name the starting quarterback Forgey said.

“We are in the process of evaluating a couple of guys that are working at it and working on it,” Forgey said.

The Warriors have several returners on the offensive line but have lost some players that played significant snaps last season.

“We have some returners on the line and we are dealing with that and seeing how that shakes out too,” Forgey said. “We lost three guys that played a lot of snaps for us last season and we are still figuring out where the pieces fit.”

The Warriors will have some senior leadership with returners George Shick, Rylan Crawford and Rory Bird.

“They are doing a great job of being good examples, leading in drills and they are an outstanding bunch of great leaders,” Forgey said.

The Warriors, like their conference counterparts Mission and Charlo, will be presented with a challenge as they enter the loaded Class C, 8-man football conference.

“We have a lot of unknown teams coming into the conference,” Forgey said. “Some of them will have new coaches and some of them will be a little unknown. We will have to get familiar with what they look like and what they are trying to do on both sides of the football. There will be three new teams and hopefully, we will get everything covered going into these new conference games (this season).”