COLUMN: Glacier looks to continue unprecedented success

Even as the world continually changes, some things remain the same.

The sun rises in the east, everyone gets old and Glacier football looks like a top-four team in Class AA football.

The Wolfpack has reached the state semifinals in each of the last five seasons, including a championship in 2014, a stretch of success achieved by just one other team in the last 20 years.

That type of consistency is rare in high school sports, given the fluctuant nature of the athletes a team is able to work with.

Players graduate every year. Sometimes the replacement for that talent isn’t always apparent in the next season. Other times coaches leave to find success elsewhere or assistant coaches are poached to revive other programs. Typically, the type of run that leads to a state championship is cyclical.

Look at Bozeman. The largest school in the state has won three state titles in the last six seasons and the Hawks have the third most wins of any program over that stretch. There is plenty of talent to choose from and a field of former college athletes who stay in town and help the program along.

After each of Bozeman’s two previous state championships before last season the Hawks finished below .500 the next season, once winning only three games and another time losing badly in the first round of the playoffs.

Even as the most decorated program in recent history, their success has seen dips, as has nearly every other program in Class AA. Before the Wolfpack reached the state semis last season, every other defending state champion had missed the playoffs or lost in the first round since Helena Capital won back-to-back titles in 2007-08.

In fact, Capital’s run from 2005-11, when the Bruins made the semis every season and the championship game six times in seven years, is the only similar run.

Like those Bruins, who were guided by coach Pat Murphy for the remarkable stretch, Glacier has been able to build continuity on its coaching staff, which has helped the always rotating group of players learn the finer points of the offense and defense by the time they reach the varsity level. That, in turn, has led to a seemingly endless depth of talent on the north side of town.

But there’s always more. Those Bruin teams won four titles in their stretch. For all its ups and downs, Bozeman has three.

While the Wolfpack’s run needs no validation, this year’s team, with the size and speed to contend for a title again, has a chance to turn the team’s unqualified streak of success into a dynasty. At the least, they plan to extend a run that has turned Class AA’s newest team into its most consistent perennial power.

“To get there we have to go day by day, work our hardest and have perfect effort every rep, every play and every week,” Glacier senior Jaxen Hashley said.

If that sounds like a player that’s been there before, it is. And with that plan, they should be at the top for awhile.