Pack, Spartans get early marquee matchup
Things have quickly gotten serious for the Glacier Wolfpack football team, which battles fellow unbeaten Missoula Sentinel tonight at 7, inside Legends Stadium.
While Flathead High heads to Butte and a game at Naranche Stadium, the Wolfpack is tasked with stopping Sentinel’s 24-game winning streak that includes the last two State AA championship games.
It’s a key Western AA battle between two 3-0 teams, and it’s here early.
“Dane Oliver has obviously done a great job of turning that program around,” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said of his opposite number, now in his 11th season guiding the Spartans. “You watched them every year get just a little better to where now, the kids expect to win, they have high standards. They don’t want to be the kids to lose.”
Sentinel graduated two 2021 players to the Griz (Joe Weida and Drew Klumph) but still have Adam Jones at running back, along with Kellen Curtiss. Jones, the top rusher (192 yards) and receiver (12 catches) for the Spartans, recently committed to Montana State.
Junior Riley Allen takes over at quarterback for the graduated Zac Crews; he has thrown for 611 yards and seven touchdowns in three games. Senior Karsen Beitz and junior Evan Halfiger are big-play targets for Allen.
“This kid’s different than the guys they’ve had at quarterback, but he’s really athletic,” Bennett said of Allen. “And he still has that Jones kid. Sentinel always puts a lot of pressure on you, defensively.”
Glacier can say the same, with senior quarterback Gage Sliter having 15 touchdown passes against just one interception, along with 709 yards and a .710 completion percentage.
Sophomore Kobe Dorcheus has a 67-yard touchdown among his team-high 201 rushing yards; six players have at least six receptions, with Kade Buls having team highs of 12 catches and five touchdowns.
Bridger Smith has 11 catches for 214 yards — a 19.5-yard average — and two touchdowns; four of Evan Barnes seven receptions have gone for TDs, and he’s averaging 21.9 yards a catch.
Bennett is encouraged that junior running back Kash Goicoechea, who had two carries in Glacier’s 55-14 win at Big Sky last week, had a full week of practice.
He’s also encouraged that the Pack started quick for a third straight week, then didn’t let up even though Big Sky cut a 17-0 gap to 17-14.
“Offensively we need to start well again, kind of keep that trend going,” Bennett said. “It is a lot nicer to play out in front. It’d be good to put pressure on them, to have them score a lot.
“The thing about Sentinel now is you’re going to have to beat them, they’re not going to beat themselves. They’re not going to self-destruct.“
The teams battled twice last year, and Glacier had the distinction of playing the Spartans the closest. Sentinel won the rematch 42-21 in the AA semifinals.
“The semifinal got away from us a little bit,” Bennett said. “But I thought both games we played them tough. We have to play well, compete like crazy and give ourselves a chance in the fourth quarter. That’s all you can ever ask.”
Flathead at Butte
The Braves took a second straight loss last week, 51-14 at home to Helena Capital; now comes a matchup of 1-2 teams, in Butte’s Naranche Stadium.
“My problem with the Gallatin game (a 38-0 loss) was we didn’t travel very well,” first-year Flathead coach Caleb Aland said. “That was a game I thought we should have competed in.
“Capital, it’s no secret how talented and stacked they are, but we knew going into that game we’d have to play a sound football game, to compete.”
Encouraging signs were Flathead owning an edge in time of possession, and cashing in its sole red-zone possession for a touchdown.
But quarterback Jackson Walker was under heavy pressure most of the evening; Aland noted a Bruins’ pick-6 was the product of a missed block on a linebacker during a middle screen.
Walker remains the starter, with Nate Skonord waiting in the wings.
Gabe Lake is the Braves’ top rusher, and Brody Thornsberry has nine catches for 195 yards and two scores.
Butte counters with quarterback Jace Stenson, who on top of throwing for 847 yards and eight touchdowns — three of them to Hudson Luedtke — is Butte’s leading rusher. Cameron Gurnsey, a Griz commit and legacy, has a team-high 21 receptions.
“They’re a team that if we don’t take them seriously, they can run all over us,” Aland said of the Bulldogs. “Their quarterback does a lot of good things. If we go in and execute we’ll be happy at the end of the day.”
The Braves snapped a 16-game losing streak to open this season, beating Billings Skyview 27-0. Aland wants that feeling back.
“I have a high expectation for our guys,” Aland said. “I feel like we should compete in every game we play, and go in with the idea we can win the football game.
“We played really sound football against Skyview. Hopefully it’s that same group of guys gets off the bus tomorrow.”