Bulldogs fall to Charlo, get ready for homecoming game against Seeley

Mission High School football coach Tyler Murray expected quite a fight in Friday night’s contest at Charlo High School.

Last week, the Vikings uncharacteristically fell to defending Class C 8-man champion Flint Creek 52-8 during last Friday’s contest.

“I think (Charlo) was fired up and ready to go and get back to the winning side of things,” Murray said. “They had a fully healthy team and they are a good team in general. They are always a good team with those guys coaching them. Landers Smith is phenomenal. He had a good game against us but made a couple of mistakes and that probably changed a couple of things up. As coaches, offensively and defensively, we are going to try to change up some different things.”

The Bulldogs fell to the Vikings in a 60-26 loss, which pushed them back into the middle of the pack in their respective conference. Now, the Bulldogs will be vying for one of the final playoff spots remaining in the conference as the conference race and playoff picture continue to develop.

“I thought our kids played really hard but we struggled again with tackling and turnovers,” Murray said. “Our team played pretty well but we were outplayed a little bit. Landers is just a great player. There are a lot of positives that we can take from a 34-point loss compared to what I’ve seen before in previous losses.”

Mission will work on their fundamental elements when they host Seeley-Lake in their homecoming game Friday night at Mission High School.

“We really got after it this week in practice and that is the thing about sports,” Murray said. “You figure something out and something else falls down. You want to do your best to try to grade out on things. We are in the process of figuring out a couple of things here and there. In this conference, every game matters.”

Murray isn’t the type of coach that deals in hypothetical scenarios, but if his team were to defeat Seely and Plains, that would set up a critical conference match up with their Mission-Valley rival Arlee in three weeks.

“There are six teams right now and (our conference) is jam-packed,” Murray said. “There could be seven teams and I think you have to bring it every week.”