Glacier upends testy Bozeman

BOZEMAN - A win is a win and the Glacier Wolfpack will take it.

The Wolfpack (4-1) battled through an ugly, flag-filled game on Friday night to come away with a 24-14 Class AA football win over defending state champion Bozeman.

"Sometimes you've just got to dig down deep and figure out a way," said Glacier coach Grady Bennett.

"It was pretty ugly in the first half," he said.

"Our defense was phenomenal tonight. Fantastic. Really our defense controlled (the game) all night," he said.

The Wolfpack held Bozeman to a total of 39 rushing yards.

"Offensively, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot," he said.

The defense set the offense up nicely with terrific field position, but still Glacier went into halftime tied at 7 after it had two touchdowns called back and had a blocked punt that Bozeman recovered in the end zone.

"You feel like you should be up 35-0," Bennett said.

But a good locker room talk calmed everyone down.

"They knew we weren't playing very well," he said.

The third quarter was much better as Andrew Nelson caught a two-yard touchdown pass from Taylor Hulslander and Kyle Griffith added a 22-yard field goal.

That gave the Wolfpack enough of a lead "that we could get out of there," Bennett said.

"They scratched and clawed and found a way to win. You take those," he said.

The coach added compliments for the play of defensive linemen Caleb Harris, Luke Halliburton, Devin Jeffries, linebackers Shelton Todd, Matt Iavicoli and Brayden Nicholson and secondary players Trevor Kenkel, Rial Gunlikson and Tyson Hubbard.

Nicholson "played fantastic. He played a great game.

"Our secondary came up and hit," Bennett said.

Bozeman wound up with 266 passing yards, "but once they caught the ball our guys were laying some shots," he added.

Glacier 7 0 10 7 - 24

Bozeman 0 7 0 7 - 14

GLA - Anthony Gugliuzza 22 pass from Taylor Hulslander (Kyle Griffith kick)

BOZ - Nick Tolstedt recovered fumbled punt in end zone, (Carson Schmidt kick)

GLA - Andrew Nelson 2 pass from Hulslander (Griffith kick)

GLA - Griffith 22 field goal

GLA - Kaleb Mitchell 20 run (Griffith kick)

BOZ - Weyer 6 run (Schmidt kick)

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Individual Statistics

Rushing: Glacier - Griffith 8-36, Aaron Mitchell 13-34, Kaleb Mitchell 5-22, Noah James 4-21, Anthony Gugliuzza 2-9, Taylor Hulsander 2-7; Bozeman - Gappmayer 12-26, Beauchaine 1-6, Stefan 2-6, Weyer 7-1.

Passing: Glacier - Taylor Hulsander 15-27-1-186; Bozeman - Weyer 22-41-1-266.

Receiving: Glacier - n/a; Bozeman - Dissly 6-57; Gappmayer 4-81; Stubbs 4-26; Schmit 3-24; Beauchaine 3-23, Toth 2-34.