Glacier’s Griz-bound Goicoechea wants to finish strong

Glacier has won quite a few football games since this senior class came on the scene as sophomores, and yet it’s hard not to notice something.

The Wolfpack is a little bit better when Kash Goicoechea is on the field.

“We have a saying that luck follows speed,” Glacier coach Grady Bennett said this week. “So if you play fast, play hard and be in the right position then good things will happen.”

Take last Friday at Butte. The Bulldogs fired a pass that senior cornerback Alex Hausmann got a hand on.

“Alex does a great job of batting the ball in the air,” Bennett remembered. “And Kash was in the right place at the right time.”

It was Goicoechea’s third interception in three games this season.

It’s not lost on Bennett or Goicoechea that Butte was able to rally for a 28-27 win, getting over the top of the Pack defense for some long touchdowns. As Glacier prepared to play an always-tough Helena High squad Friday night at Legends Stadium, the loss became a lesson.

“There’s a lot of things that we learned from that game,” Goicoechea said. “We’ve got to just not let us affect us and keep on rolling. We just can’t let one game bring us down. There are a lot more games to play.”

Bennett, as he has with many of his players, has known Goicoechea a long time.

“The thing that sticks

STRONG

from B1

with me is there are a lot of kids with natural talent that aren’t really hard-working, committed kids,” Bennett said. “But Kash has not only had the natural gifts of speed and talent, but he also works very very hard.”

Getting noticed

Goicoechea fought injuries, particularly a sore hamstring his junior year, the past two seasons. But his abilities as a safety, kick returner and running back are apparent. At least they are to the Montana Grizzlies, Montana State Bobcats and North Dakota State Bison.

Goicoechea committed to Griz, which, it should be noted, is where his dad Sean and uncle Mike played — Sean was a safety on the 1995 national championship team.

Kash took his own fast path.

“I will tell you I wasn’t as dynamic as he is,” Sean Goicoechea said. “I did not have Kash’s speed. We credit his mother for that. She was the trackster.”

Sean and the former Amy Nicholas were high school sweethearts in Stevensville, and got married while Sean was closing in on his degree from Montana’s law school. They moved to Kalispell in 2000 and put down roots: Kash is the oldest, daughter Ella is a freshman at Glacier and son Carson is a seventh grader.

And just about as far back as Kash can remember, there was football.

“First or second grade, I played flag football down at Kidsport,” he said. Hausmann was a teammate then as he is now; same with Isaac Keim and Cohen Kastelitz.

Somewhere in there, dad got the VHS tapes out. There’s the claw stenciled on a natural grass but concrete-hard field, in a Washington-Grizzly Stadium that held far fewer fans.

“I’d heard stories about him playing football in high school and in college from my grandpa,” Kash said. “And my dad’s friends. That was pretty cool.”

Dad isn’t so sure.

“His first question was, ‘Why is this picture square?’” Sean Goicoechea said. “Then it was, ‘Why are your shoulder pads so big?’”

The Visits

Things evolve, like football pads, playing surfaces and college recruiting.

“It’s different now than when I played,” his dad said of the latter. “It’s earlier and faster and more chaotic. He visited Missoula and Bozeman, and he and I went out to North Dakota State. All were very good experiences. I told him from the very beginning I was completely onboard with any decision he made. I tried hard to stay out of the way.

“But when it came down to it was obvious where his heart was. … We could tell it before he voiced it.”

That decision has been made. Right now the task is to get back on the W side of the ledger. The super sophomores are now seniors, with the exception of transfer quarterback Jackson Presley.

“I really like him,” Kash Goicoechea said of Presley, a strong-armed sophomore. “He’s a strong, natural born leader. We’ve all been playing together for a long time, but he came and fit in really well with our team. And obviously he’s a really great quarterback.”

A lot of season is left, though these things tend to fly by when you’re in the emotion of it.

“I’m just having fun out there,” Kash Goicoechea siad. “I’m trying to enjoy every little bit of it.”