Football: Braves and Bruins battle for needed win
Last winter, Flathead trekked to head coach Kyle Samson’s alma mater to make its first playoff appearance in four years.
The Braves are headed back to Helena Capital tonight and if they want to get back to that other place — the Class AA state playoffs — they would do well to reverse last year’s outcome, a 15-0 season-ending loss.
Flathead (3-4) takes on an equally desperate Bruins (3-4) team at Vigilante Stadium at 7 p.m. The two sides enter tied with Great Falls C.M. Russell (3-4) for the eighth and final state playoff spot with three weeks remaining.
Flathead already has a loss to CMR this season and would lose tiebreakers to both the Rustlers and Bruins with a loss tonight. That, coupled with the fact that Flathead’s season ends with games against two teams — Glacier and Missoula Sentinel — with winning records, makes tonight’s game easily the biggest of the year for the Braves.
“The kids, they know,” Samson said of the standings. “At the same time, we talked about it last week, too. We know that we’re playing meaningful games into October.
“The kids know that it’s very important but it’s another football game and it’s another chance to go compete and play the game that they love. With high school kids, every Friday night is a big deal and we’re excited about having another opportunity.”
The Braves are coming off a 14-7 win last Friday in Butte, a game that could have been even more one-sided in Flathead’s favor were it not for a handful of squandered opportunities in the red zone.
“We had a fumble [in the red zone] and we made a couple mistakes,” Samson said. “It’s on me just as much as it’s on our kids. I take a ton of pride in making sure we score in the red zone.
“The field narrows so you’ve got to be a little more precise in what you’re doing. One of the things we try to practice really hard on is red zone situations and we feel confident we can go out and execute on Friday night.”
Capital enters the game off an emotional 3-0 win against crosstown rival Helena last week. The Bruins didn’t do much in the game offensively, but their defense was stellar and held Bengals star running back Ryan Arntson to just 86 yards on 19 carries.
“They’re extremely well coached, still got quite a few guys that I got to play for when I was there,” Samson, a 2003 Capital grad, said. “They’re very, very good up front, on both their O-line and D-line. They’re very technically sound and we know that we’ll be ready to go.”
Flathead’s running attack found a little footing last week with the return of seniors Seth Adolph and Ryan Skramovsky from injury. Skramovsky scored the go-ahead touchdown in the win and Adolph ran for a team-leading 72 yards on 17 carries.
Quarterback Bridger Johnson put together his best offensive game of the season against the Bulldogs, going 12 for 16 for 228 yards and a touchdown. The senior will be looking for a measure of redemption against the Bruins after he struggled mightily in the playoff loss last season, going just 3 for 15 for 22 yards on a frozen field in Helena.
Tonight’s game will be broadcast live on KGEZ 600 AM and at www.kgez.com.