Glacier again tops Flathead for flag football title

BUTTE — It’s two years, two state titles for the Glacier Wolfpack flag football squad, who beat Flathead 28-13 Thursday night in the championship at Naranche Stadium.

Glacier coach Mark Kessler gave a lot of credit to junior running back Kirstyn Terrell, who gained big yards when Kai Johnson wasn’t going to the air.

Johnson threw two touchdown passes to Noah Fincher covering 42 and 38 yards, the latter icing the game with under three minutes remaining. It capped a drive in which the Pack faced fourth-and-15 from deep in its own territory, but converted (with a pass to Fincher) and eventually scored.

Johnson also threw a long TD to Zoey Allen, and in Glacier’s first game Thursday — a 30-12 semifinal win over Mission — she fired scoring passes covering 47 yards to Allen and 66 yards to Fincher.

Flathead, which beat Lockwood 33-18 to advance to the final, went up 7-0 in the final behind quarterback Harlie Roth, who found Oaklie Breslin to cap the opening drive of the game.

The lead changed hands three times — Glacier led 8-7 on Allen’s TD, then trailed 13-8 when Roth found Casianna Clemons with a TD pass, then took the lead for good on Fincher’s first TD.

Johnson ran for a score to put the Pack up 21-13.

“We’ve got to talk about Staisha Thomas,” Kessler said of his senior defender. “She had 16 tackles and was literally all over the field, pulling Miss Roth’s flag and kind of containing her after their first drive.”

“Lockwood was a great game because it was spread around to everybody,” Flathead coach Lisa Koehler said. “Good team effort.

“Harlie definitely played very well tonight, both games. She’s a solid leader for us. I’m definitely going to miss that senior leadership from her. I was pretty blessed, actually, with a lot of good senior leadership. A lot of girls made some big plays.”

Flathead and Glacier met in the 2022 title game as well, capping the first MHSA-sanctioned flag football season. Five teams competed this year, including Butte, which lost a play-in game to Mission 12-6 on Thursday.

“It’s awesome. I’m just so proud of the girls,” Kessler said. “Achieving this in any sport is not easy to do. It was probably one of our best nights as far as executing what we wanted to do.

We had a few hiccups here and there in the game but overcame them and came out on top.”

“I think it was a really good showcase,” Koehler added. “A well-played, hard-fought game.”