Golan keys Wildcats offense on playoff run

Kai Golan might be the quieter one off the soccer field, but on it, he’s impossible to miss. His mix of explosive speed and scoring ability has made him not just the top scorer in the state and a key part of the Columbia Falls Wildcats offense.

Golan scored a hat trick in the Wildcats’ state championship victory last fall, and he kicks for the football team. On the same day as the chipper, Golan, then a junior, helped the Wildcat gridders win a playoff game before leading the soccer team to a state title.

“Kai has put pressure on himself, but thankfully there's so many other great guys around him that can score,” Wildcats coach O’Brien Byrd said. “We’ve got a lot of guys in the top 20 in the state.”

That Golan is one goal off the all-class career scoring record (68, by Corvallis’ Cayden Ayers from 2013-16) should come as no surprise. But it was indeed a surprise for Golan and Byrd to discover that he was close to that and a couple other records, one of which is the Columbia Falls season record (24 goals) set by Finley Sundberg last year.

“I knew he had a lot of goals, but I just keep one season at a time,” Byrd said. “I’ve got more things to focus on than that, but it was brought to my attention just a couple weeks ago. My God, that's really special.”

This fall Golan has 22 goals and 6 assists, and actually held the school record for goals the year before Sundberg broke it.

“The school record is always a goal for me,” Golan said. “I had it before Fin, and then he took it back from me… So it's like this year I was like, ‘I gotta get that back.’ And then coach just texted me and it was like, ‘Hey man, you're five goals off of the all-class career record.’ And I had no idea about that, so that's something pretty special to me.”

By now, managing a two-sport schedule is easy for Golan, who says it has worked out nicely the past few years to where he hasn’t had to miss important games for either team. He’s also seen the benefits of cross-training, mostly in the speed and power of his shots.

“I've noticed that I wouldn't be able to kick without my soccer skills,” Golan said. “But then I've noticed in soccer from kicking, the power that I can hit shots. It's just like I can sling some balls, like hit 'em pretty hard and I never used to be able to… I mean I could hit them, but now it's like holy cow.”

Last fall Golan was laid up for a couple games because of a stress fracture in his back. He came back to score 16 goals and three really important ones. The injury taught him how to better take care of his body and improve his training.

“It’s pretty remarkable how little it affects me now,” Golan said. “Sometimes I'll be a little sore after a big game, but I haven't had a problem with it.”

Golan hasn’t made a decision on what’s after high school, but since there are more opportunities to play at the collegiate level as a place kicker, that will likely be the route he takes.

First, though, the defending state champions go on the road to Corvallis for a Class A quarterfinal on Saturday. Corvallis tied the Wildcats in Columbia Falls earlier this season.

Down 2-0, Golan and River Wolford scored four minutes apart late in the second half to tie the score. The Blue Devils were the first team to challenge the Wildcats this fall, and are the No. 1 Southern seed.

“That (game) should give everybody an idea of how competitive it's gonna be,” Byrd said. “They have nine starting seniors. We have two and I think honestly, the thing with the number one seed is you’ve got pressure on you, while we're number two. It's kind of nice that we don't, even though we're putting plenty on ourselves, because we have pretty high expectations. We're not looking past this game, that's for sure. These guys are good. We're good. They're tough. We're gonna have to have our best game to have a chance.”

The Columbia Falls girls are coming off a big win against Whitefish in the last regular season game, and draw Hamilton, the No. 1 Southern seed in their quarterfinal game. Hamilton also handed Whitefish one of its two losses this season, 2-1 on Sept. 16 (the Wildkats beat Whitefish 2-1 last week).

“I mean, they're a good team,” Wildkats coach Thomas Clark said. “They’re well-organized. They have a strong back line. More importantly, they've got some players up front that are really dangerous. Hannah Hughes is individually one of the best players in the state.”

The Wildkats bring much to the table themselves, with leading scorer Hope McAtee (23 goals, 20 assists) and Josie Harris (22 goals, six assists) and other scoring threats in Mila Johns and Onnikka Lawrence.

“I think the girls have been great,” Clark said. “They’re not complacent at all, but they're also super confident and we really feel like we can beat anybody. So every team that we're gonna face from here on out is gonna be good, and it's gonna have threats but we feel like we're in a really good place. We're firing on all cylinders coming into the playoffs, which is great to be at that point in your season at the right time and we still feel like we can get better.”

The Whitefish girls will play host to Billings Central on Saturday, the team that beat them in the state final last year.

“It's great on paper and it's a great story, that the two returning state finalists play early on,” Whitefish girls coach Roland Benedict said. “But it's nothing new to this group of players. We had to beat Laurel, the defending state champs in the first round last year and now we have to beat Billings. So this group, this team, this program, we're used to getting the tough games and we're gonna be ready for ‘em.”

The Bulldogs have a number of threats, including Olivia Genovese (17 goals, 10 assists), Delaney Smith (13 goals, eight assists) and Sadie Olson (nine goals, six assists), as well as seasoned goalkeeper Norah Schmidt.

They don’t expect to see the same team on the field this year, and Whitefish is pretty different too.

“They're gonna be completely different,” Benedict said. “They're gonna have new leaders. And our team's pretty fresh faced. Pretty much our whole back line and midfield's brand new except for one player. And then our goalkeeper obviously coming back and a bunch of new starters out wide. We've got a lot of new players also, so it'll be a new experience for them.”

The Whitefish boys have a home game Saturday, too, and it’s against a team that beat them in the semifinals last fall — Livingston.

“There’s a familiarity now to being back in the playoffs against him this time,” Whitefish boys coach John Lacey said. “It's a well-coached team. They've got experience in these environments before. We are gonna have to rely upon a little bit of learning on the fly because last year when we played them in the playoffs, we had played them during the regular season.”

The unbeaten Bulldogs have Ryder Elliott (11 goals, eight assists), Kyler Jonson (12 goals, three assists) and Preston McPherson (eight goals, three assists) in their well-balanced offense.

“Our focus is always when we go into these games, we wanna play our best soccer and we're not going to start over because a different opponent changes what they might be doing about our game,” Lacey said. “We're gonna try and be aggressive. We're gonna try and go out and win the game. And if we do those things, we have the experience, we have the players, we have the game, that will allow us to hopefully force other teams to address us rather than us trying to be responsive to them.”

The Bigfork Valkyries head to Laurel for their Saturday game, and the Polson boys visit Billings Central.

Full game schedules can be found in Scoreboard, Page B2.