Mission Valley teams deal with schedule changes

Polson Pirate coach Pat Danley and his team were one of several Mission Valley teams whose schedule was affected by the wild fires.

The Pirates, along with several other area football teams, were confined to practice in the gym as opposed to outside.

“Practicing was an extremely different week but we can’t use that an excuse because Corvallis was in the gym all week,” Danley said. “Obviously, practicing in a gym was far from ideal as one of our assistants compared it to being on a swim team and not having any pool to practice in.”

Danley said the most difficult aspect of practicing in the gym is recreating the spacing. It just doesn’t happen.

“We put it in play but never ran on grass until the game and it was a frustrating thing to do,” Danley said. “You just can’t recreate the spacing in the gym for the passing game and you can’t work on defending the passing game. You also can’t simulate special teams and that is the most frustrating part of it.”

The Polson game was postponed until Saturday at 4 p.m. at Corvallis High School. The Pirates cross country team, originally scheduled to go to the Highlander Invitational in Spokane, Wash., went to the Bozeman Invitational instead.

Charlo Vikings football coach, whose Friday night game with Arlee was rescheduled for Monday, said playing on Monday simply made it a “weird week” for his players and coaching staff.

His Vikings team defeated Arlee 56-6 during Monday night’s game at Charlo High School. Krahn said he felt the outcome could have been different if both teams had adequate time to prepare.

“Both teams had very little time to prepare this week and if both teams had a little more time to prepare, (this game) could easily be a different story,” Krahn said. “It was a weird week and a weird game as our players were walking from class onto the field. It would be very easy to get distracted and discouraged by the circumstances. I am very proud of how our players handled it.”

One of the teams that made some of the most adaptations on short notice were the Polson Pirates and Lady Pirates soccer teams. Both teams were originally scheduled to host Laurel on Thursday and Billings Central Saturday at Polson.

Because of the conditions, the boys and girls soccer teams had to play back-to-back games against Laurel and Billings Central after traveling to both of the towns. Polson from Billings one-way is a 414-mile trip for a non-conference game.

“You know it was tough because we played inside for three days in a row and then, at the last minute, you have to drive halfway across the state (of Montana) and play two tough teams,” soccer coach Jamie Whealon said. “The turf is fast and kind of hard on the body. Turf radiates heat off the field and the game itself is very taxing for the players. The girls were expecting to sleep in their own bed but instead, you are sleeping in the hotel.”

Pirates coach Adam Fansher said the transition was “difficult.”

“I felt like we were in limbo for a week,” Fansher said. “We couldn’t train outside, couldn’t grow and get better, and that was really a problem but I guess the positive is that everyone got to rest and we are healthy going into conference play.”

Fansher said all his coaches want is to return to normalcy.

“All of the coaches want to get outside and get back into the swing of things,” Fansher said. “It was amazing the administration was able to get this off on short notice. Pretty much all of the other soccer games got canceled on the east. Jay Krantz stayed on the phone to make sure that we were able to play on the weekend.”