The Central Montana Sports Round-Up With Karl Koontz

Week 3: Football Quarterfinals Central Montana High School Football Playoff Preview

As the weather turns a bit there only a few teams left practicing on the turf across Montana, with twenty squads still alive in search of state title in the five divisions of high school football. It’s been a long season, and this weekend the field will be cut in half once more with a round of semifinals taking place on the gridiron throughout the Treasure State. The Class AA games are set for Friday night at 7:00 pm and all the rest will commence at 1:00 pm on Saturday. When the dusts clears, championship matchups will be set for all classifications.

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Class AA

The AA school playoff bracket has followed form this postseason, as the top seeds held form to advance to this round. The Gallatin Raptors, #1 from the East, will play host to the West’s #2, the Glaciers Wolfpack. Billings West travels to Helena for a contest against the Capital High Bruins. Gallatin is the only undefeated team among the four, who were the top ranked teams in the final season poll. Gallatin upended Helena High 35-15, Glacier outscored Butte 48-38, Capital bested Missoula Big Sky 50-18, and West High eliminated Missoula Big Sky 37-27.

Class A

The East dominated the West in this Class A quarters, with Havre knocking off Frenchtown, Laurel Defeating Columbia Falls 35-28, Billings Central handling Whitefish, and Lewistown putting an end to Dillon’s work for 2024. Yellowstone County will be the venue for both Class A semis. Lewistown travels to the Magic City to take on Billings Central, hoping to reverse the result from their first meeting, when the Rams blanked the Eagles 39-0. The other side of the bracket has Havre heading to Laurel. The Locomotives got the best of the kids from up north the first time around in a close one, 27-20.

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Class B And C

While there will be no repeat champs in the big school ranks, the defending kingpins are all still alive in Classes B and C. Florence-Carlton is looking for a three-peat when they hit the Hi-Line and joust with the Malta-Whitewater-Saco-Dodson Mustangs in Malta. The Falcons are riding a 10-game win streak while Malta has been ranked #1 or #2 the entire season. The Mustangs are 11-0 after topping Three Forks 59-36 while Florence beat Boulder 35-14 last weekend. The opposite side of the bracket pits Manhattan against Red Lodge-Belfry-Roberts in the shadow of the Beartooth Mountains. Manhattan outdueled Eureka 16-11 in the quarter finals and Red Lodge ended Missoula Loyola’s hopes 28-7. The surviving teams from Class A are all #1 seeds from the four respective divisions.

Class C 8-Man

The Class C 8-Man teams that battle on all had relatively easy wins in the last round. Scobey, the #4 out of the East upset Fort Benton on the road 36-20 to earn their way into a rematch with Eastern and defending state champ Fairview, who blasted Choteau 48-0. Scobey’s 8-3 record is a bit deceiving, and they played the Warriors tough the first time around, falling by a tight margin 28-20. The winner of the game in Fairview will play against the victor between Belt and Flint Creek (Drummond and Philipsburg). That game will be in Belt and aired on KMON Radio with Chris Kelly and Karl Koontz providing play-by-play and color. These teams have a bit of history, meeting three times in the playoffs the last ten years. The Huskies reached the game by erasing an early deficit and handling Culbertson 48-12 while Flint Creek stopped the Chinook Sugarbeeters 28-6. Flint Creek is 10-1 while Belt, hoping for a berth in their third straight chipper, is 11-0.

Class C 6-Man

Golden Triangle teams have been the class of the 6-Man field this year, and two of them qualified for the penultimate games in their bracket. The Box Elder Bears sport an unblemished record and their trying to add to the state hoops title they won last year. The Savage Heat of Hot Springs will head to the Bear Paws for this contest. Hot Springs stopped the Highwood Mountaineers’ run last weekend 46-8 while Box Elder outlasted another area team, the DGSG Bearcats by a fairly typical 6-Man score of 74-64. Defending champ Centerville heads to Bridger after the Miners edged Chester-Joplin-Inverness 44-40 and Bridger snuck past Lincoln 75-64.

With coronations less than two weeks away the high school football season just gets better and better and KMON is proud to be a part of it, providing a link between the communities of the Golden Triangle. Be sure to tune in to Saturday’s broadcast from Belt at 1:00 p.m. You can listen on 560 AM, on our website and on the 560 KMON App