Glacier runs away from Rustlers
The C.M. Russell High football team wanted long, sustaining drives on Friday night.
That was the game plan coming in.
It happened over and over and over.
But it also wanted points out of those drives.
That never happened as much as it needed it to.
The Rustlers fell to visiting Kalispell Glacier 28-15 in front of several thousand fans at Memorial Stadium Friday night in what was a rematch of last November’s state championship game.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a couple times,” Russell QB Lane Jensen said. “We didn’t punch the ball in when we should have. We’d drive the ball 80 yards, get inside the 15 and then we’d stall out. Can’t do a whole lot about that. This one stings.”
Glacier has now won five consecutive games in the series.
The Rustler (4-3) offense totaled 479 yards, but drives stalled time after time when the ball got near the red zone.
They faced fourth down seven times in the first half, and went for it on six of them. A 42-yard Dylan Sandefur field goal attempt in the second quarter missed wide left, and it was 3-for-6 in other situations, none more painful than an Andrew Grinde run that was stuffed short of the goal line as time expired.
In all, they were 4-for-7 on fourth down.
“We got the big stop at the end of the first half, which ultimately might be the game,” Glacier head coach Grady Bennett said. “It just seemed like anytime we really needed something, these guys stepped up and made it happen. I’m just so proud of them tonight.”
The play before Grinde was stonewalled, with 10 seconds left and no timeouts at their disposal, Jensen hit wide out Karl Tucker II near the goal line. Officials ruled him short of the plane. Grinde was stopped short on the ensuing play as the Rustlers hustled to get it off with a second left.
The Yale commit ran the ball 15 times for 87 yards before intermission and 154 for the game, edging closer and closer to breaking Brandon Utterback’s state rushing record of 4,679.
“It was just a momentum change there I think,” CMR head coach Gary Lowry said of the end-of-the-half sequence. “We had some opportunities again and just didn’t take advantage of them. I was proud of the kids’ effort. I thought they played pretty well. Glacier is a pretty good team. We’ll keep plugging along here.”
Glacier’s (5-2) first scoring drive, the first points of the game, amounted to 11 plays and 72 yards. Senior tailback Thomas Trefney ran for 41 yards on six carries, and Patrick O’Connell punched it in from the 2-yard line to take a 7-0 lead with 9:02 left in the second quarter.
“The first half we could’ve scored a couple times and didn’t put points on the board,” Lowry said. “That gave them some momentum and took away some of ours. I thought we played better this week than we did last week. I was proud of our kids’ effort. It just didn’t work out.”
The Wolfpack went three-and-out in their other two drives of the half and ran only 17 plays to Russell’s 50 as the time of possession favored the home team by a 3-to-1 margin.
The Wolfpack narrowed that in the second half, but the Rustlers still controlled the clock handily.
“We aren’t normally a-bend-but-don’t-break defense, but tonight we were,” Bennett said. “ … They had the ball the entire first half and yet we pitch a shutout. And so there are different ways to get it done. … When it is all said and done, to only give up 15 points to those guys and that talent, is pretty amazing.”
Midway through the third quarter, Glacier – without key contributor tight end and defensive end Jaxen Hashley for the majority of the game because of an injury – went 80 yards in six plays to take a 14-3 lead. The Russell defense brought all-out pressure, and the Wolfpack responded with a perfectly timed screen pass to Trefney out of the backfield.
Trefney, who ran for 201 yards and four TDs in his team’s 56-19 win over Russell last November for the school’s first-ever state title, secured the pass and went 63 yards to the house. He had 26 carries for 122 yards to go along with that TD reception.
Russell responded right back.
On the first play from scrimmage on the next drive, Jensen sent a rainbow into the air, a perfectly thrown ball, that hit Tucker II in stride. He bounced the play to the middle of the field, outran a defender and found pay dirt for an 84-yard score. The 2-point attempt was unsuccessful. 14-9 Glacier with 4:52 left third quarter.
“Oh, man,” Lowry said. “Yeah, that was on the money, wasn’t it? That was a good throw. Karl Tucker is a good receiver. He catches a lot of balls that are tough to catch. Yeah, that was a pretty pass.”
Tucker II, the Montana State verbal commit, continued to show why he is one of the best receivers in the state as he caught 12 balls for 166 yards. Jensen came back from a four interception performance last week against Helena Capital to throw for 273 yards on 20-32 passing with one meaningless, late-game interception.
The long passing play provided a spark, but the Rustlers needed to sustain it, Jensen said.
“Yeah, there was definitely a momentum shift, but you have to keep playing after that drive,” said the junior signal-caller. “That’s just one drive, one touchdown. You have to keep coming to work after that and we didn’t. Our defense gave us multiple opportunities in the first half and we just didn’t execute.”
The stops on defense that Russell got in the first half were elusive and hard to find in the second half.
After Tucker II scored, Glacier went 80 yards in four minutes, capped by a Trefney 1-yard TD, to take back the momentum and control of the game, 21-9, with 52 seconds left third quarter. Quarterback Leif Ericksen threw the ball for 203 yards as the Wolfpack displayed solid balance between run and pass.
“Just an incredibly gutty effort by our kids,” Bennett said. “Incredibly gutty effort.”
Grinde, the 2014 Gatorade Player of the Year, returned the ensuing kickoff to midfield and, after a 48-yard run down to the Glacier 10-yard line, had the Rustlers right back in it.
On a fourth-and-goal from the three, Jensen willed his way into the end zone. Russell failed the 2-point conversion as wide receiver Chris Moore, on a designed reverse pass to Jensen, decided to keep it himself and try to run it in. He was stopped short.
Glacier scored on its next drive to take a 28-15 lead with 8:19 left in the game and were never threatened from there.
Russell travels to Billings Senior next week, who dropped its first game of the season Friday in a 20-19 loss to Bozeman. The Broncs are 6-1. The Wolfpack are in Butte to face the Bulldogs.
