Central Montana Sports Round-Up With Karl Koontz

Sports in Central Montana

The Dog Days of summer are winding down, a good harvest is almost complete in the Golden Triangle, and parents and kids are checking out “back to school” sale events. That means it’s time to look to the fall and for most of us, that also means football season. The tradition of high school football binds generations together in the small towns across central Montana and KMON has long been part of that rite of Autumn. This year all of us at the Central Montana Radio Network are excited for the 2023 gridiron season to kick off. 560 KMON, 99.9 Big Sky Sports, and KOOL 92.9 will be your source again over the coming months for live broadcasts of area gridiron action.

The Crew

Chris Kelly, Robin McKnight, “Baker” Bob, Ed McNamee, and Karl Koontz will bring you great action each weekend from both the Class AA Electric City schools as well as games from the 8-man and 6-man Class C ranks. Bob and Ed will cover most of the CMR and Great Falls High games while the rest of us will come your way on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons with contests from throughout Cascade, Teton, Chouteau, and Judith Basin counties. We’re even dragging Randy Bogden out of retirement to grab a microphone.

The Schools

We’re focusing on area teams, and our schedule will include trips to Simms, Cascade, Choteau, Belt Fort Benton, GFCC, Valier, Centerville, Power, and Dutton. We’ll get a chance to watch Highwood, Roy-Winifred, and Denton-Geyser-Stanford-Geraldine, all 6-man playoff teams from last season, battle it out again this year to find out who’s best. Centerville and Power-Dutton-Brady expect to reach the playoffs, as the y usually do. It will be fun to see if Big Sandy can repeat their state championship ways from 2022 as they were a high-flying aerial show last year. On the 8-man side, the Belt Huskies also won a state title in 2022 and return a team with speed to burn this time around. They’ll be challenged by playoff contenders like Chinook, Fort Benton, and Shelby in the Northern Division. Simms and Cascade are always strong in the Central Division and we’ll catch them each a couple times.

The Fun

It promises to be lots of fun and you don’t want to miss a minute of the action. We’ll get it started next week on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. (August 25th). The Badgers of Cascade travel to take on their old rival Simms in a game that will start one of those two teams off on the right foot for the season. The next day Belt and Fairview will lock horns in a much-anticipated rematch from last year’s non-conference season opener. That game will be played at the fantastic new facility in Winifred with bright red artificial turf reminiscent of the surface at Eastern Washington University. That game is slated for a 2:00 p.m. kickoff.

AA Games

In AA games, you can catch CMR at home on KOOL 92.9  at 7:00pm.  Baker Bob on the mic.  Great Falls High is out of town.  When they're at home, you'll find the Bison on Big Sky Sports, 99.9.

We’re ready for all the excitement that is high school football and we hope you are too. Be sure to join us on 560 am, 560kmon.com or on the KMON app. It’s going to be a great season!

Written by Karl Koontz