FRITZ NEIGHBOR
SPORTS EDITOR
Fritz Neighbor is the Sports Editor for the Daily Inter Lake. He oversees sports coverage across the Flathead Valley, including high school athletics, youth sports, and regional competitions. In his leadership role, he helps shape the newspaper’s sports coverage and editorial direction. Fritz’s column, Full Count, taps into his decades’ long career covering Montana sports. You’ll also see Fritz sharing his thoughts and insights on the Big Sky Now podcast.
IMPACT: Fritz’s work celebrates the athletes and teams that bring Northwest Montana communities together.
Recent Stories
Big Sky football: A game of inches
So far this year, and more than any early season we’ve seen lately, football in the Big Sky Conference is a game of inches.
Gilman, Griz down Central Washington
MISSOULA — The early reviews are in on Montana’s 42-17 season-opening win over Central Washington Saturday night.
Cats, Griz football capsules
Montana State managed just 244 yards in its 59-13 loss at Oregon last week. Stanford transfer QB Justin Lamson accounted for 198 of those yards,
Flag football: Pack of titles
3-time champion Glacier reloads for another run
The three-time state champion Glacier Wolfpack flag football program got a first look at the 2025 version Saturday at Legends Stadium.
Flag football: Bravettes, under new leadership, not going away
An 11th-hour coaching change isn’t generally what you want in a program, but it appears the Flathead flag football squad isn’t going away
Bobcat capsule: No. 2/2 Montana State at No. 7 (FBS) Oregon
When the Bobcats have the ball: Montana State will continue to run behind a stout offensive line and with two excellent running backs — Adam Jones, who had 1,172 rushing yards last season, and Julius Davis, who ran for 718 yards in 2023.
Western B Football: New coach, same goals for Lions
Flathead isn’t the only program around taking on a new head coach: Eureka, a perennial Western B power, enters the Kenny Kindel Era with a home game against Fairfield Friday night.
A Football: League changes, favorites stay constant
Change is afoot in Class A football, where the far-flung, 13-team Western A of yesteryear has been split into two and we’re back to a six-team Northwest A conference.
Girls soccer: Kats are loaded, Whitefish won't fall far
The Northern A is good at soccer, and the usual suspects — Columbia Falls, along with neighboring Whitefish — will be tough to knock off the conference pinnacle.
Boys soccer: Perhaps a Cat-Dog final is due in 2025
We were this close to having a Cat-Dog State A boys soccer championship last November.
Volleyball: Bravettes poised to make a run
While the Flathead Bravettes did go 7-19 last season, they also played a large batch of athletes that are back this fall — and in sixth-year coach Emily Russell’s mind that bodes well.
Volleyball: Wolfpack ready to go
First-year head coach Jaimie Nelson figures if her Glacier Wolfpack play as a team, the results will show at the net.
Pack picks Evans as softball coach
Glacier High has found its next softball coach, and he’s been around the program for 13 seasons.
Phil Jackson takes over Braves, Bravettes golf
First-year Flathead coach Phil Jackson had a lot of spots to fill on his golf teams, but he’s more than looking forward to another year on the courses with the Braves and Bravettes.
Heavy is the crown
Wolfpack boys prepare for another title; girls have high hopes
As career starts go it’s hard to top what Glacier golf coach Jim Ness experienced his first season: A sweep of divisionals followed by a State AA crown title for the boys team.
Full Count: Flathead A’s -- Stopping the unstoppable
There were a couple unstoppable forces facing the Flathead A’s U16 baseball team last weekend: The earth’s rotation and Charlie Getlinger.
2025 Griz report to camp Thursday
The Montana Grizzlies report to fall camp Thursday with a lot of questions, even at the position that has the most experience and depth.
Full Count: Buckmaster holds onto pitching itch
Bryce Buckmaster was pretty much unhittable for 600 pitches this season, anchoring a solid starting rotation for the American Legion Kalispell Lakers.
All to play for
Lakers open up State AA with Scarlets
The Kalispell AA Lakers open the Montana/Alberta American Legion baseball tournament Wednesday at 10 a.m., against a Billings Scarlets squad that won three early matchups this season.
Meeting challenges
Cale Brink fights through diabetes, finds key role with Lakers
When you’re 13, life should be relatively worry-free and for Cale Brink things were going good right up until they weren’t.
Full Count: Faces change but Bobcats stay constant
Someone pointed out to Montana State coach Brent Vigen, during the Big Sky Conference Football Kickoff, that just five of the 24 players present for interviews were all-Big Sky players in 2024.
Pioneer League Insider July 23
Pitcher of the Week: Luke Schafer, Glacier Range Riders.
Big Sky Football: Radioed play calls, 9-game league schedule on way
Among the preseason honors doled out at the Big Sky Conference’s Football Kickoff last weekend in Spokane came a couple bits of news.
Full Count: (Flip Darling) Field of Dreams beckons again
The idea to have a Division I women’s soccer exhibition in Columbia Falls had been on O’Brien Byrd’s mind for some time, and when it finally happened — the Montana Grizzlies and Gonzaga Bulldogs met on Flip Darling Memorial Field last Aug. 11 — Byrd felt a mixture of elation and exhaustion.
BravePack swim coach Bouda has resigned
Karen Bouda, the swim coach for Kalispell’s AA schools the past six seasons, has resigned according to a release from Matt Allison, assistant principal and activities director for Flathead High School.
Osweiler back 'where it all started'
The way Brock Osweiler sees it, summer isn’t just about lakes and baseball.
Full Count: A good horse and a long trip to Wyoming
The optimum barrel horse remains unridden, but Tess Megill says she can do no better than Parker when it comes to a pole horse.
Full Count: Local anglers bring state title to shore
On May 17 Trent Tennison could say he caught the biggest lunker Noxon Reservoir had to offer, and no one would suspect a Fish Story.
Pioneer League Insider
News and notes from around the PBL.
Mark Dennehy, Glacier's only AD, set to retire
Glacier High School has, in the last few years, seen several athletic and teaching mainstays step aside. In many cases — boys basketball, volleyball, girls track — it was the only head coach the Wolfpack had known since the school’s doors opened in 2007.
Full Count: Storybook finish for the Braves
Dan Hodge has been boys track coach at Flathead for eight of the Braves’ state championships, and Saturday was maybe the first where he began the cleanup portion of the meet before it was actually over.
Wilmot, Whitefish girls claim State A crown
Rachael Wilmot crushed it, Grace Sliman cleared it and the Whitefish Bulldogs won it.
They’re for real
Rinehart sets records, Braves win title
Alivia Rinehart is for real and so are the Flathead Braves.
AA track: Hollensteiner blazes to 400 record
For those who hadn’t spent much time at Legends Stadium before Friday or otherwise seen Will Hollensteiner in person, the Flathead junior made it official: He can fly.
Wolfpack sweep the 3,200s
Sophomore Lauren Bissen and junior Owen Thiel both claimed 3,200 state titles Friday, during the first day of the State AA track and field championships at Legends Stadium.
A track: Wilmot cruises; C-Falls boys lead
Rachael Wilmot clocked Lane 7 and then kicked it in gear.
Heading for home
The two fastest seniors walking the halls of Flathead High School have a chance to end their prep careers in style, on a track located four blocks from campus.
There there was 1: Wildcats head to State baseball
The Class AA schools have crashed the party that is high school baseball in Montana, and the Northwest A felt the pinch.
Softball: Troy, Polson and Glacier aim to make statements
It’s a nice cross section of Northwest Montana that is headed to the state softball tournaments, from Columbia Falls to Polson and up to the corner for the Troy Lady Trojans.
Reid, between the lines
The core of Columbia Falls’ back-to-back state championship softball teams graduated or otherwise moved on, but here we are in late May and the Wildkats are still hitting.
Full Count: Troy softball -- Driven to new heights
The coach drives the bus, the third baseman throws lefthanded and the first baseman has only been hanging around the diamond for three seasons.
Full Count: A breakaway roper and her horse
When her horse, Monty, reared back in the breakaway roping box and pinned Anna Tretter to the back wall, the needle swung to “big mistake.”
Why not Wilmot
There was a time when Whitefish burner Rachael Wilmot was a cross country runner, and her dad remembers it well.
Bravette backstop
Reese Conley leads Flathead at the plate, and behind it
Reese Conley hits at the top of the lineup for a team that made the last two State AA softball tournaments, but she and the Flathead Bravettes have a tougher road this year.
Full Count: Things continue looking up for Phelps
Jack Phelps’ time through the 200 meters at the Iceberg Invitational on April 17 was 22.57 seconds, which tells you that the Columbia Falls sprinter can fly.
Legion: Experienced Loggers built better for 2025
There were way too many walks and errors and they added up in a 13-11 loss in their American Legion baseball opener. But in this version of the Libby Loggers, coach Kelly Morford found a lot to like.
Steady Influence: Cazz Rankosky leads Pack from behind plate
The dust was settling on Helena Capital’s 3-2 win over Glacier in the 2024 State AA softball championship last May, and DJ Rankosky found himself near the backstop, offering words of encouragement to his daughter Cazz.
Putting up zeroes
Glacier's Warriner leads sweep of Butte
Olivia Warriner threw 7 2-3 scoreless innings Tuesday, broke a 4-4 tie with a two-run single in the first game and helped Glacier sweep a home softball doubleheader from Butte, 6-4 and 5-0.
Olivia Squared
Gibbons, Warriner lead Pack to 15-1 Crosstown win
Down 1-0 out of the gate, the Glacier Wolfpack answered with their two Olivias — and those two did some serious damage on their home field.
Full Count: I am here not to bury Donovan
On Nov. 25, 1985 a youngish reporter, in his Monday duties writing about Griz football for the Montana Kaimin student newspaper, traipsed into Larry Donovan’s office.