FOOTBALL: Another playoff rematch for Columbia Falls

COLUMBIA FALLS — Columbia Falls has seen this scenario before.

For the third straight year, the Wildcats are playing in the first round of the playoffs against an opponent they beat in the regular season.

In 2014, Columbia Falls hosted Hamilton in a rematch of a 14-9 win in the Bitterroot the second week of the season and fell 27-21 in the postseason.

Then last year, the Wildcats beat Polson 35-26 at home in the regular season before rebounding for a 9-6 victory in the playoff rematch at Satterthwaite Field.

This season, Columbia Falls will get a mixture of the two scenarios, hosting Corvallis for a second time, while also facing a Bitterroot team that has changed a lot since a meeting in the first week of the season.

“They look similar defensively, but offensively they’ve changed,” Columbia Falls coach Jackson Schweikert said.

“They’ve gone from spread formations and condensed. They run the ball a lot more.

“They have a big offensive line and they’re going to try and utilize those guys a little more with misdirection, some option game, a little bit of the Wing-T/flexbone type look.”

In the first matchup this season, Columbia Falls went scoreless in a quick first quarter before exploding for 41 points before halftime, including five touchdown passes from quarterback Dakota Bridwell, to turn the contest into a rout.

“We just had to figure out what coverage they were running and what they were trying to do,” Schweikert said of the slow start. “We hadn’t played them before and we didn’t know exactly what they were going to do. Once we kind of figured it out we were able to attack it pretty efficiently.”

Bridwell has thrown for 2,617 yards and 32 touchdowns this season and has found a pair of potent receivers often. Braxton Reiten has 835 yards receiving and 12 touchdowns entering the playoffs and Trevor Hoerner, a University of Montana commit, has 551 yards and six touchdowns. Fellow senior Sean Miller also has six receiving touchdowns.

Cole Wohltman, who hauled in a pair of long touchdowns for the Blue Devils in the first matchup, is Corvallis’ biggest threat on offense, averaging more than 20 yards per catch. Quarterback Ridge Albright and tailback Liang Liedle lead the rushing attack.

The game is scheduled to kick at 7 p.m. Friday in Columbia Falls.