Football: Bigfork, Eureka to battle for 7B crown
The District 7B football title will likely be on the line tonight when Eureka travels to Bigfork in a clash of probable playoff teams.
No. 3 Bigfork (6-0 overall, 2-0 District 7B) is seeking its fourth straight district championship while Eureka (5-2, 2-0) is looking for its best finish since 2009 when the Lions finished in a three-way tie with Bigfork and Plains and earned the district’s top seed via tiebreakers.
“I’m really looking forward to it,” Bigfork coach Todd Emslie said.
“It’s one of those classic high school matchups on a Friday. There’s a championship on the line, there’s playoff implications on the line, I think it’s going to be an awesome night. I’m sure the Bigfork crowd will be out in full force. I’m sure the Eureka crowd will be out in full force, too.”
Bigfork’s offense boasts a dangerous collection of skill position players. Boyd Rieke and Vinny Quirk comprise a productive running back tandem, quarterback Josh Sandry is a dual-threat athlete and Cameron Nissen is a big threat at tight end. Rieke and Quirk average a combined 189.4 rushing yards per game, Sandry has completed 60 percent of his passes with an 11-1 touchdown to interception ratio and Nissen averages 72.7 receiving yards.
Eureka also has a dual-threat quarterback in second-year starter Austin Perez and a pair of tough running backs in Cole Jankovsky and Trent Vaughn. Perez is completing 45 percent of his passes and averages 53.7 rushing yards. Jankovsky and Vaughn average a combined 111 rushing yards.
“Their quarterback Perez, I think a lot of him,” Emslie said. “They’ve got a couple of running backs that are solid and it appears that they’ve got a really nice, young line.”
Bigfork has an average margin of victory of 20.8 points and that regular-season dominance has been standard for the Vikings in recent years. Eureka coach Trevor Utter said Bigfork is always a tough opponent because it is so well-coached.
“You’re not going to run into a team that has a better coaching staff than Bigfork,” he said.
“Every year they’re prepared. They’re solid across the board.”
While Bigfork’s defense isn’t as flashy as its offense, Emslie said it has been able to dig in when it counts.
“Our defense has, up to this point, been bend but don’t break,” he said.
“I’d say our strength there is rising up and getting a stop when they need to.”
Its challenge tonight will be stopping Perez.
“I think stopping the quarterback, trying to contain him a little bit (will be important),” Emslie said. “He’s got a great arm and he can run.”
Utter said Eureka can’t be intimidated by Bigfork. The Lions faced defending state champion Missoula Loyola two weeks ago and fell apart after briefly leading 8-7. Utter hopes his team doesn’t repeat the mistakes it made in that game.
“I think that with high school kids when you get into big games like that, a lot of it is mental,” he said. “In your mind you have to know you can play with Loyola. We played with them, we were up 8-7, they went down and scored and we didn’t and it became a mental game.
“I’m hoping that experience will help us stand up and fight. We had a tough game against Troy last week where we had to stand up and fight. Hopefully we can do that same thing, but we’ll have to play much better against Bigfork than we did against Troy.”
Tonight’s game kicks off at 7 p.m.
Class B
District 7
Overall Conference
W L W L
Bigfork 6 0 2 0
Eureka 5 2 2 0
Thompson Falls 2 5 1 1
Troy 2 4 1 2
Plains 0 7 0 3
Friday’s Games
7 p.m.
Eureka at Bigfork
Thompson Falls at Troy
Plains at Deer Lodge