Vikings claim district title

A 43-24 victory over Troy on Friday night earned the Vikings football team the District 7B championship.

Currently, Bigfork is the only team that has not lost a conference game this season. Tonight, Oct. 21, in Mission (2-2) they will see if they can finish the season with a perfect 5-0.

If the Vikes play the way they did Friday against Troy (1-3) in their final regular season home game, the Bulldogs shouldn’t be a problem.

Against the Trojans, the Vikings were scoreless until the second quarter, when Cody Dopps ran in a 14-yarder and Dillon Charlebois put up the extra-point kick. Troy answered back with a touchdown off a push-to-the-end-zone play and then pulled off a two-point conversion with a pass play.

With a little more than four minutes burned off the clock in the second quarter, Bigfork trailed 7-8.

“We started off slow in the first quarter,” said Todd Emslie, Bigfork’s head football coach. “Troy kind of possessed the ball for most of that quarter, but, once we got rolling, we were pretty much unstoppable. Our offensive line was amazing. We had a really good game.”

Bigfork took the lead back with a 1-yard haul into the end zone by Christian Ker and a successful kick by Charlebois.

While holding off Troy from scoring again, Bigfork added another 10 points to its score before the end of the half. Charlebois put up a 25-yard field goal to extend the lead from 14-8 to 17-8.

“Dillon Charlebois hitting the field goal for us was great. It was solid,” Emslie said. “It was 25 yards but it could have easily gone 40 to 45. That should give him some confidence going into the playoffs.”

Following Charlebois’ field goal, Bigfork had another touchdown. Travis Knoll ran it in on a 5-yard play and officially bounced back from last week’s game in Fairfield, the first game of the season he didn’t score in.

Making up for lost time, Knoll was responsible for both of Bigfork’s third-quarter touchdowns that sealed the win for the Vikes. The first was off a 12-yard run and the second was with an 8-yard run. Charlebois made the extra point on the first two Knoll TDs but missed the third, leaving the score at 37-8 going into the fourth quarter.

In the final period, Colson McCoard added to Bigfork’s point tally with a 13-yard rushing touchdown and Charlebois made his extra-point kick. The points sent the game, which had about five minutes remaining at the time, into a running-clock scenario in compliance with the mercy rule.

While most thought it was time to call it a game, the Trojans did not. With 1:53 left, Kody Hoffman took the ball in from two yards out and then Cory Orr scored on the two-point conversion play. With the score back within 35 points, the running clock was stopped. Troy, unwilling to leave it at that, played to the last second and was able to score one more time with a 36-yard pass play from Mike Ormiston to Hoffman, and Ormiston made the extra-point. The Trojan’s last ditch effort wasn’t enough to keep the Bigfork boys from doing what they set out to do that night, though.

“I thought we handled everything pretty well,” Emslie said. “There was a lot on the line for us with the conference championship and the home field advantage. I really feel like the offensive line had something to prove and they came out and proved it.”

One of Emslie’s biggest focuses for his boys the past few weeks has been to play a cleaner, more mistake-free game with fewer penalties.

“We did that Friday night,” Emslie said. “We had six penalties, but it was definitely better. We had only one turnover — a weird one where the ball just kind of slipped out of Travis’ hands.”

That night the Vikes did a lot things well, all of which helped them tally up 537 yards of total offense. That includes 408 yards rushing, a number that may top the Vikings’ record books if such stats were kept.

Either way, it is one of the biggest rushing games Emslie has seen the Vikings have during his years coaching at Bigfork. That is in part because he usually has his teams keep to a passing game, but this year’s strong offensive line has turned Bigfork into a rushing team.

Dopps led that effort with 15 carries for 173 yards.

“What a game he had,” Emslie said. “He was just all over the place for us.”

Knoll was a big contributor to those rushing yards as well with 23 carries for 157 yards. He also had two receptions for 51 yards.

Ker was six of 13 for passing for a total of 129 yards and Alex Ruiz was the team’s tackling leader with 10.5.

“Christian had another one of his solid football games and Travis — that’s another three touchdowns for him this season. What do you say about that? He is just a great football player,” Emslie said.

According to Emslie, Knoll is averaging more than 237 yards of total offense per game. He has accumulated 16 rushing touchdowns and three receiving while averaging 8.7 yards per carry. Although he hasn’t been the one consistently in the end zone, Ian Lorang has been making a big impact for Bigfork on both sides of the ball, especially Friday.

“He had some great catches on offense to keep drives alive,” Emslie said. “He just had a great game on offense and his typical solid game on defense. He works so hard. He never leaves the field.”

Also producing one of his best games of the season, according to Emslie, was Dillon Fraley.

“He can just push people around, wow,” Emslie said. “He’s got potential with his body size.”

Emslie was somewhat disappointed that his defense allowed Troy to accumulate 342 yards of total offense, but said “our defense played pretty well in general.”

Although the buzz is definitely on the playoffs right now, the Vikings have one more conference game to play.

“I just hope that we can stay focused, because it is kind of a spring board to the playoffs,” Emslie said. “We have to go down there and compete. I hope that we can stay focused.”

While the Vikes are riding high from the news of their district title, Mission has plenty to brag about as well, which Emslie said does leave the Vikes a little concerned. On Friday, Mission had a 59-22 victory over Plains, who finished last season in a three-way tie for first place in the district with Eureka and Bigfork.

“They’ve been putting up a lot of points, they’ve been putting up a lot of yardage on offense and they’ve been winning some games,” he said. “We have secured first place no matter what happens on Thursday, but we still want to go down and play a good game.”

Kickoff in Mission is at 7 p.m.

As for the playoffs

Many of the details surrounding the playoffs are still unknown. What has been determined is that the Vikes are the No. 1 seed in 7B and they will host a first-round playoff game against the No. 2 seed from District 6B, which will be either Missoula Loyola (6-1) or Florence (5-2).

The game will be Saturday, Oct. 30, at a time to be determined by the two schools.

“It’s funny because I don’t think they know what they just did,” Emslie said of his team. “It’s been a long time since there’s been a playoff game secured in football let alone a conference championship.”

Missing in action

Bigfork will be doing some adjusting over the next couple weeks to accommodate the return and loss of a few players.

Kevin Countie has been out since sustaining a minor concussion during the Vikes’ game against Thompson Falls. He will return to action in the Mission game. Conversely, James Vale will be missing Thursday as he will be on the east coast on college visits. It has also been determined that TJ Johnson is out for the remainder of the season. Johnson missed the start of the season due to an injured knee and it has been decided by his doctors that he should return to the sidelines.

“Countie will move into Vales’ spot on Power I,” Emslie said. “James is mainly a defensive tackle and we’ve got a lot of linemen so we can pull guys from there and rotate them in. We will just focus on that and it will be nice to have Kevin back.”