Welcome back to this week's Interlake Sports. Now I'm Josh Duggar, and we'll start this thing out with a winter sports update, including our first prep basketball action of the winter sports season. Then we'll move into some Grizzlies football talk as Montana is coming off an impressive, hard fought overtime win. Playoff win I should mention over Furman. And then we'll preview the Grizzlies upcoming playoff matchup with North Dakota State.

The bison are coming to town. The bison will be in Missoula. We're definitely going to preview that one a bit. Quick reminder today's episode is brought to …

Welcome back to this week's Interlake Sports. Now I'm Josh Duggar, and we'll start this thing out with a winter sports update, including our first prep basketball action of the winter sports season. Then we'll move into some Grizzlies football talk as Montana is coming off an impressive, hard fought overtime win. Playoff win I should mention over Furman. And then we'll preview the Grizzlies upcoming playoff matchup with North Dakota State.

The bison are coming to town. The bison will be in Missoula. We're definitely going to preview that one a bit. Quick reminder today's episode is brought to you by Nomad for the Flathead based manufacturer. Nomad is a longtime supporter of the local community and sports scene, so bring 20 years of building great careers and mission focused custom vehicles.

Nomad, a Montana based company making a global impact. Visit Nomad gcs.com for more info. That's Nomad jks.com for more information. All right, let's get to that winter sports update, starting with some basketball news. We'll start out with Flathead, where the brave bets are off to an, off to A20 start, undefeated under first year head coach Kaylee Fox.

They had back to back wins at home. Flathead start out their season on Friday by beating Great Falls to beat the bison 3722, after outscoring Great Falls 26 to 12. In the second half. Kennedy Moore and Sam McDowell each had 11 points, a tie for the team lead on Saturday. The Braves followed that up with a 60 to 33 win over CMR.

Moore was at it again with a team high 22 points, and fellow senior Chloe Converse was next up with 12 points after hitting four triples. As for the Wolfpack Girls Wolfpack girls basketball team, they dropped their home opener to CMR 4744 on Friday night, but bounced back with a strong performance Saturday with a 4730 win over Great Falls.

Reese Ramey led the Wolfpack with 17 points in the victory, and Carly Allen chipped in ten points, including a pair of buckets from beyond the arc on the class double. A scene for the boys, where Glacier split their games in Great Falls over the weekend. They started out Friday with a 45 to 44 loss to CMR, after Dean Blair scored the winning basket with eight seconds left to play.

Glacier was led by Colin Costello to add 24 points in the loss. The Wolfpack responded with a 6238 win on Saturday over the Great Falls Bison. Costello led the way once again with 15 points. 13 of those came out to the house to a clutch performance, no doubt, and the Wolfpack cruised to a victory. Brady Sam Anderson was the pack second leading scorer with 12 points in the win.

The Flathead boys dropped a pair of games at Great Falls over the weekend. Friday, they played the Great Falls Bison tough in a game before the bison went 72 to 67. Flathead was led by Flathead, was led by Elliot Ursuline, who had 17 points. 13 of those came in the final eight minutes, but the bison did just enough to hold on to the win at home.

On Saturday, CMR ran away from the Braves for 9130 to win to drop the Braves to. Oh and two Lyric Ursuline out of team by ten points for Flathead. Now on to the local wrestling scene, where Flathead held off a scrappy Billings West squad to win their third straight minus three doors and extend their dual win streak to 59 straight wins.

That's very impressive. Kellen Downey had the dual ceiling pin for the Braves at 103 pounds. Anders Thompson and Sawyer Troup also had pins to help push Flathead over the top one quick piece of Flathead boys wrestling news worth mentioning is Anders Thompson just signed his letter of intent to wrestle for the Oklahoma Sooners big time program right there.

Thompson is currently the seventh ranked wrestler in the entire nation for the 195 weight class, so the Sooners got a good one in the Flathead high product under the girls wrestling action that went down to Kalispell over the weekend with the Flathead Invitational taking place at Flathead High, the host Bravehearts finished second behind Billings Senior, while the Glacier Wolfpack finished 12th.

Ronan had an impressive showing and landed third place at the event. All right, let's get to our Poster Player of the week. Back at it after a couple weeks off. So before we move into this Grizzlies football talk, we'll get to the Poster Player of the week, generously sponsored by your friends at Clark Auto Group. Here in Kalispell, featuring three local stores Clark, Nissan, Clark, Hyundai and Mount Auto, a marine home of the 2999 oil change and the friendliest staff in town.

Join us at Clark Nissan for our holiday coat, scarf and glove drive and help spread warmth in our community. Starting December 1st through December 22nd, drop off your new or gently worn coats, hats and scarves to Clark Nissan on Highway 93 South in Kalispell. For more information, call (400) 661-2124 four. Let's brighten this holiday season with acts of kindness.

So this week's Clark Auto Group Poster player of the Week is Flathead Braves senior Chloe Converse, who we just mentioned as converse hit four three pointers to help flathead roll past CMR 60 to 33 last Saturday to push the defending Western champion Bravehearts record to two zero. Converse and the Bravehearts are poised to compete for another Western AA title, so we'll definitely be keeping an eye on that Flathead squad under new head coach Kelly Fox.

Excited to watch them this year. No doubt about it. Heck of a squad. All right. Thank you again to Clark Auto Group for their support. Make sure to drop off your new or gently worn coats, hats and scarves to cart Nissan on Highway 93 to help brighten this holiday season with acts of joy moving along to some Grizz talk, it's been an exciting week for Grays football fans.

The Grizz beat Furman 35 to 28, in the FCS playoffs. Overtime thriller. We'll take a quick look back at my kind of big takeaway from that game. And then we'll look ahead to the Grizzlies match up with North Dakota State. The bison are coming to town Saturday afternoon. That's going to be a fun one. We do have one piece of Grizzlies news.

We've mentioned before that we get to the preview and the recap where freshman star running back Eli Gilman won the Jerry Rice Award last week, given to the best freshmen in the country at the FCS level, Gilman is the first player in Grizz history to win the award, and became the fifth Big Star player to win the award since it began in 2011.

Idaho's Javonte McCoy. We see it's Josh Davis and they use case cookies and Eastern Washington product and NFL star Cooper Cup one and two. They're 2013. So Gilman joins a nice list there of some former big Sky stars. And a couple current ones at McCoy who actually just hit the transfer portal story for another time. Gilman kind of had a down performance this last week in that in that win over Furman, but they won the game.

That's what's important. And on the year he has 901 rushing yards ten touchdowns and he broke the Grizzlies record for longest touchdown run in school history when he broke off an 85 yard touchdown at UC Davis October 7th. Gilman was also the first Grizz to win the Big Sack Freshman of the year award since the award started in 2013.

So overall, just major kudos to Eli Gilman on a big time redshirt freshman season. He's put Davis poised to have a special football career with the Grizzlies. So let's get to the takeaways from the Grizz win versus Furman. We'll get to three keys for Montana to beat North Dakota State Saturday at Washington Grizzly Stadium. First off Grizzlies took care of business at home.

Impressive win. But I got to give credit to Furman for battling all night. That was one of the best games in college football I've seen all year. Montana State played in a hockey game against the bison two weeks ago. Then Montana followed up with this overtime thriller of their own. So it's been an epic couple of weeks for football fans in Montana.

I know a lot of Montana State fans would have liked to see that one got a different direction to win that one, but point being, some great football being played great games and so kudos to the Paladins on a hard fought game. But the Grizzlies did make it back to the FCS semis for the first time since 2011.

As far as takeaways from this game, here's the big one that jumps out at me. I think Montana needed a close game like this. As a fan, as somebody covering the Grizz, you want them to go steamroll teams in the playoffs, stay healthy, not have one of those games, are sweating it out for the whole four quarters and over time.

That being said, I mentioned last week on the show Montana had it played a close game since October 14th at the CME dome, and heading into the Furman game, they'd outscored their opponents 194 to 43 over a five game stretch. That's almost two months since a Grizz played a close game. I think they needed a real test. Furman was a tough defensive team.

They were stout, well-coached, had a lot of playmakers, a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. It was a bit of an ugly dogfight, kind of a game, but that's right up the Grizzlies alley and it played into their favor. Junior Bergen was electric. He was the difference maker. Tube returns for touchdowns can play a change dynamic to that game.

That being said, my big reaction to that game is the Grizz. They hadn't played a close game in a while. They went into a dogfight and they won. You got North Dakota State coming to town and if you win that game, you're going to play the South Dakota State Jackrabbits most likely, or Albany on the other side of the bracket.

And both of those teams are tough, hard nosed football teams. They want to run the ball. They want to play defense. The Grizzlies, they're going to be engaged in a dogfight in those games. North Dakota State Bison I'd expect a close game. So it was a stressful win over Furman. But it can help the Grizz moving forward because every play counts so much right now.

You can't make those mistakes. You got to be dialed in. The Grizz can learn from what didn't go right for us. Furman. They have the experience. All those players and the coaches who hadn't been in a close game in a while now have to take that with them. So I think the bison coming to town, it's going to be a tough game.

They've been playing their best football the past couple of weeks. The Grays they started, they hadn't strung together for good quarters of competitive football in a couple of months because they've just been steamrolling teams, which is great. But that overtime battle for Furman came at the right time. They'll be prepared for a close game the next couple weeks, because that's what you're going to have to do to win a championship.

So overall, hard fought win. But it might have been just what Montana needed. All right, let's get to my three keys for Montana to beat the North Dakota State Bison Saturday. The bison are coming off a big win over South Dakota prior to that to beat Montana State. So they're clicking at the right time. And they steamrolled Drake in the first round of the FCS playoffs.

So they're looking like molds their old selves. Worth noting. Their head coach Matt ETS, is leaving the program after the playoffs and heading to USC to be the linebackers coach for Southern California. We'll see if that impacts their play this coming weekend. I'd imagine. Can only help the Grizz, but hey, might have guys fired up to play anyways, let's get to the three keys.

Key number one starting with slow down the bison rushing attack. I said the same thing when Montana State came to town for the Brawl wild last month. You're going to shut him down. It's just not going to happen. They're too good. They have too many guys who can hurt you. Ndsu is very similar to Montana State in that regard.

Top five rushing attack in the country. But if you can slow them down, contain them, force them to play in third and long those kind of situations, it can really change. The complexion of the game. Will force bison quarterback Cam Miller to make some long throws downfield. He can make some plays, but this is why that's important to me.

Miller leads the FCS in completion percentage completes over 73% of his passes. You don't want the bison living in second and short, third and short where Miller can have a quick underneath throw to an open man. He is good at manipulating defenses with his legs and moving around. So if the bison are more of a third and long situation where you need to pick up chunks of yardage, I like the president's chance a lot more of making a stop and setting that offense up in an easy situation.

So slow down the rushing attack. Contain them the best. You can't. Don't let him break loose for any big runs. That's the big thing. You can let up a couple first downs here and there, but make him play between the 20s. Don't let him in the red zone. We'll get to that more in a little bit, but got to slow down the bison rushing attack.

Key number two win the field possession battle and limit penalties and have zero turnovers. This might seem obvious, but the bison are the third best team in the country when it comes to taking advantage of red zone opportunities. They scored 93% of their trips inside their opponents 20 yard line. If Montana can force the bison. Kind of like what I was just saying to put together long drives, it will keep this thing competitive.

But if the bison, they're winning the field possession battle, they start things out good field territory. It's going to make it really tough on the Grizzlies because the bison offense can't get it going. You don't want to give them easy scoring opportunities. So it's key to make big plays on special teams like the Grizz have been doing, for the most part, avoid the bad penalties and take care of the football because like we saw in the Furman game, Clifton McDowell, who did play his mind out, play out of his mind in that game.

He's been on fire down the stretch. He did have a bad interception for firm, and it kind of changed the dynamic of that football game. Don't want to let the bison have that same opportunity, have an easy chance to score points because they will capitalize with that elite red zone efficiency. So you gotta limit the mistakes. If you're Montana and make the bison on everything.

Key number three Forest Force. Excuse me, North Dakota State quarterback Cam Miller to make a mistake and throw an interception. That's the beginning right there. Here's a little start for you. The bison lost three games this year. They lost at North Dakota at South Dakota State and at home in Fargo. So they don't lose much there to South Dakota.

What was the common denominator in those three losses? Bison quarterback Cam Miller threw interceptions. And every bison lost to South Dakota State and one each for North Dakota and one versus South Dakota. So that's four total. Why is that important? Cam Miller only had four interceptions on the season. So the bison were oh and three when Miller threw a pick in their 11 wins.

He has 14 touchdowns and zero interceptions in the three losses. He has four interceptions and four touchdowns. It's not perfect. Football math football math never is. The stats don't tell the whole story. Miller is a heck of a playmaker, QB, but the bison have not won a game when Miller throws an interception. So I think seeing how great Ndsu has played down the stretch, they've been really clicking.

You can get an interception really get that offense out of their rhythm, maybe kind of knock their confidence down a notch. That could be a major game changer and help the Grizz win the turnover battle, which could be crucial for a victory in this one. It is worth mentioning this is a Montana team who has an interception on defense and four straight ball games, and they have the eighth most interceptions in the entire country.

So the Grizz, they don't need to alter their game plan. Keep playing their style. Football wreak havoc around the quarterback and hopefully they can force Miller to make a mistake. Because if Miller does that, the stats show you know it's a lot tougher for the bison to get it done in those ball games for whatever it is. Might be a confidence thing and might just be the offense isn't clicking, so they're taking more chances, and that's where the interception comes from.

But gotta hope the Griz defense can make some plays. And an interception would definitely be a nice play to make early in the game particularly, but any time that'll be clutch. So overall looking forward to this matchup with the bison. It's going to be a heck of a football game. It's going to be a treat for FCS football fans.

For Montana Grizzlies, football fans are going to be sweating it out. Definitely going to be a hard fought game. It's in Missoula. You know Washington Grizzly Stadium is going to come ready to rock and roll. Those fans are going to be getting after it. And they're going to be letting the bison hear it. I got Montana take care of business in this one.

I'm going to say 28 to 17 lower scoring game than anticipated. But it's that time of year. Teams are going to be looking to play a perfect game on both sides of the ball. It's going to be physical, it's going to be hard fought and I'm really looking forward to this Saturday afternoon. We'll see what happens. But I like I said, I got the Grizz taking care of business, but it's going to be a close ballgame.

So that being said, quick reminder today's episode is brought to you by Nomad. Voted the flatheads best manufacturer. Nomad. As a longtime supporter of our local community and sports, and celebrating 20 years of building great careers and mission focused custom vehicles. Nomad, a Montana based company making a global impact. Visit Nomad geeks.com for more info. That's Nomad geeks.com for more information.

All right. Thank you all. Thank you as always to everybody for checking out the show under Still going On. Next week's show will be recapping some more prep basketball, a little more wrestling action, and definitely be breaking down this Grizz Bison matchup and hopefully be previewing a little championship FCS championship game preview for the Grizzlies. Don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

We'll see what happens. But give me a fun weekend everybody I'm Josh Deegan I'm out. Thank you as always for checking out the show.