Prep Football: Glacier has home opener; Flathead heads to Belgrade
After a promising road win, the Glacier Wolfpack football team heads into its home opener Friday night looking simply to improve.
Whatever went wrong last week — the Pack beat Great Falls High 28-3, so not a lot — can and should be addressed.
“What excites me the most going into Week 2 is so many new players got their taste of Friday Night Lights last week,” said Glacier coach Grady Bennett, whose club takes on Billings Senior tonight at Legends Stadium. “I’m just excited to see the improvements that they make.
“This is going to be such a huge week for growth and improvement, so everybody just can really focus on a couple things to get better at. We had a great week of practice, and I’m just excited to see us in Week 2.”
While Glacier takes on the Broncs, Flathead is at Belgrade for a 7 p.m. nonconference game.
Senior at Glacier
Kale Konecny ran for 99 yards in Senior’s 21-12 win over Missoula Hellgate last week, though it was quarterback Ryder Murdock — son of Broncs head coach Chris Murdock — who had the 15-yard, fourth-quarter scoring run that gave his team some breathing room.
“Coach Murdoch is obviously one of the better coaches in AA, and his teams are just always going to be well-coached,” Bennett said. “His son is a senior and he’s a leader. Any time you have a coach’s kid like that, who’s competitive, smart and hard-nosed — that’s what Chris was like when he played.”
Glacier was balanced in Great Falls. Officially, junior quarterback Jackson Presley threw for 239 yards; his 14 completions went to six targets, with Bridger Smith, Carson Baker and Ethan Anderson being the main ones.
Kobe Dorcheus ran for 105 yards on 14 carries, and had a TD rushing and receiving.
Murdock rushed for 59 yards in a run-heavy attack against Hellgate.
“They’ll run spread power stuff, and they do run some option,” Bennett said. “(Murdock) is a dual threat. He’s definitely kind of their machine.
“They’ve had a couple off years (4-6 last season, 3-7 in 2022), so I imagine they’re excited to get off 2-0.”
Flathead at Belgrade
The Braves knocked off Belgrade 17-14 at Legends a year ago, coming up with four turnovers and a critical screen pass for a big gain to hold on.
“It was a game where we had two touchdowns taken off the board,” Flathead coach Caleb Aland noted. “The offense really clicked and gave us a chance to win that game. We’re looking for the same thing this week.”
A year later Flathead still has quarterback Brett Pesola in the fold while Belgrade is a bit of an unknown, with its third head coach (former Western Illinois defensive end Jeremy Curry) in four seasons.
Quarterback Hudsen Rask triggers the Panthers, and he has a couple dangerous targets in Wesley Ehret — Aland singled him out — and Ryder Tolley. Up front are a couple good tackles, Aland said: Mason Zimmer and 6-foot-5 Drew Anderson.
Flathead ran for 160 yards, 74 from Pesola and 58 from Nolan Campbell, in last week’s 28-14 loss to Great Falls CMR. Pesola also threw for 190 yards.
Aland was pleased with how Ben Blodgett and Will Hollensteiner caught the ball last week, and how Xander McLaughlin and fellow sophomore Dylan Wink — the latter filled in a linebacker for the Braves, who still have five projected starters suspended — played on defense.
“Xander McLaughlin did a lot of good things. He’s going to be a dude for us this year and the next two,” Aland said. “We need to get our passing game to click sooner and finish drives, It’s another opportunity. We’re excited about it. We’re going to get Belgrade’s very best and realistically, they look at their schedule and see us as a team they can beat.”
He added he’s thrown out the Panthers’ performance against Big Sky.
“I don’t think that’s the version we’re going to get,” he said. “We’re going to get their very, very best and we have to be prepared for that.”