Wildcats one step from state

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By GREG SCHINDLER

The Daily Inter Lake

The defending state champions are still lurking.

The Columbia Falls High School boys soccer team was decimated by graduation after edging Billings Central for the Class A state title last year, but the program that was supposed to be rebuilding is one step from another title shot.

The Wildcats won their quarterfinal match at Belgrade on Saturday, even though Columbia Falls coach Peter Browne said they "played about 40 minutes of soccer." The Wildcats were inconsistent in their 2-0 win, just as they have been all season, but they're a young group maturing at the right time.

"The kids know that they can play better and that's on a positive note," Browne said. "I think our best soccer is ahead of us."

Columbia Falls visits Hamilton in a semifinal match at 2 p.m. on Saturday. Though the Wildcats hope to win and defend their crown against the victor of Saturday's Whitefish-Corvallis game, simply reaching the postseason wasn't a sure bet in August.

"With this group of kids, (reaching the semifinal) is a pretty good accomplishment for those kids," Browne said. "We lost a handful of games and didn't play our best against Belgrade and we're excited to go down to Hamilton."

The Wildcats went 3-2-1 in Northern A play and head to Hamilton with a modest 7-5-1 overall mark. But two of their losses came to Whitefish (13-0) and another at defending Class AA state champion Flathead.

"We've dropped some games, but we've gotten better every week, with a couple setbacks," Browne said. "I think the kids are pretty confident, so we'll just have to see."

Hamilton won the Southern A with a 7-1 record and is 12-1 overall. Brandon Syme leads Class A in scoring while Luke Swartout notched a dozen regular-season goals.

"We're going to really have to be organized, especially defensively, and I think, if we play our game, we should do OK," Browne said. "If we play our possession game and play smart and play for 80 minutes, I really think we're a better team, but I don't know."

Browne is quite familiar with the Broncs. The Wildcats lost to Hamilton in the 2004 state-championship game at Columbia Falls, but beat the Broncs in last year's semifinals.

"We're a different team this year and so are they," Browne said. "There's a little bit of history there, so I think it should be a pretty hard-fought battle."

Hamilton's superb record might be just as misleading as Columbia Falls' mediocre mark.

"I think all the single A (teams) are a little down this year with the exception of Whitefish," Browne said. "I lost seven seniors, I think they lost seven or eight, so we should be pretty evenly matched, I think."

The Wildcats and Broncs haven't faced many common opponents this year, but Hamilton topped Northern A's Libby in a shootout last Saturday. Columbia Falls beat the Loggers once and tied them once.

Browne said the Wildcats must not let Hamilton stretch them out Saturday.

"I think they play a lot like Libby," Browne said. "I think they kick and run and I think they run hard and, at times, we have trouble with a game like that. We're more of a possession team."

But more important to Browne than game strategy is getting his younger players to buy into the Columbia Falls system and clean up the seemingly small mistakes, which have caused the Wildcats big problems in their losses.

Seniors Dustin Gibson, Dennis Marceau, Keith Appleton and Peter Vanhorn and Columbia Falls' other veterans will ensure the younger Wildcats don't get overwhelmed in the team's biggest game of the season.

"I've got about four kids who started in that (championship game last year) and a couple that sat and played a little bit in that game, so I think our four seniors are going to have to carry the load and hopefully the younger guys will follow suit," Browne said.