SPORTS

Preps Plus: Bison, CMR football opens with doubleheader

Scott Mansch
smansch@greatfallstribune.com

It's never too early for football fans to look ahead.

Exactly three months from Thursday, on Aug. 28, sports fans in Great Falls will be treated to a doubleheader at Memorial Stadium.

And we're not talking baseball.

Gary DeGooyer, athletic director for Great Falls public schools, confirmed this week that the C.M. Russell High and Great Falls High football teams will open their 2015 seasons on the same day and at the same place — Memorial Stadium — a few hours apart.

"With a new rotation this year, home and away scheduling was difficult," DeGooyer said. "We didn't want to lose the Helena schools, so this is what we came up with. We took the two home games the first weekend and then the eighth weekend we're both on the road."

On Friday, Aug. 28, coach Gary Lowry's CMR Rustlers will take on Kalispell Flathead at 4 p.m. Then at 7, or 7:15 if the first game runs a little long, coach Matt Krahe's Great Falls High Bison will play host to Missoula Big Sky.

It's the first football doubleheader at Memorial Stadium in several years.

"If you go back 10, 12, 14 years with our scheduling," DeGooyer said, "that was the norm. To have doubleheader weekends. But we usually played them on Fridays and Saturdays."

The trend recently has been for most high school football games in the state to be played on Friday night.

HIGH SCHOOL games at Memorial Stadium this fall will be played at 7 p.m., which is 30 minutes earlier than has always been the case.

Why the switch?

"I can assure you it was not for the media (and deadlines)," DeGooyer said with a chuckle. "It was just a tradition to play at 7:30 and we left it there. Now both our head coaches think it would be great to play at 7 so that's what we've decided to do."

It's expected that both the Bison and Rustlers will have their games carried by Great Falls radio stations again this fall. Livestreaming of the games on the Internet will also be available.

MEMORIAL STADIUM will also be busy in July this year as the Montana East-West Shrine Game returns to Great Falls.

The 69th annual Shrine Game is slated for July 18. CMR's Gary Lowry will coach the East team while Don Peoples of Butte Central will guide the West.

"Our guys, as we speak, are working on the field," DeGooyer said Wednesday. "They got started as soon as the last track meet was over this spring. Hopefully it will look great on the 18th."

THE COMING school year will be an exceptional one for Great Falls sports fans. Of course, aren't they all?

But in the 2015-16 school year there are several state meets slated in the Electric City. The list begins with the State Cross Country Meet on Oct. 24 at Eagle Falls Golf Club.

The State Swimming Meet is here at the Swarthout Fieldhouse pool on Feb. 12-13.

Then in March, two State C basketball tournaments will be played on back-to-back weekends at Pacific Steel and Recycling Four Seasons Arena.

And in May, the State AA tennis tournament is slated at various courts in Great Falls.