Vikes drop season opener to Ronan

Friday night’s 32-12 loss to Ronan was not quite the way that the defending Class B State Football Champions had intended for their first game of the season to go, but every team has to start somewhere and the Vikings learned some lessons from the defeat.

“We have to finish. We have to finish our drives,” said Bigfork head football coach Todd Emslie. “We left Ronan with the ball several times in the red zone. We need to get points. We didn’t do a good job of that. We didn’t do a good job of stopping them.”

Ronan led early on after Marcus Hungerford took in a 6-yard run for his team, and Chris Clary added a successful two-point conversion with a pass from Robbie Gauthier.

Bigfork’s Chris Landon shortened up the gap with a touchdown off of a 25-yard pass from quarterback Colter Mahlum. A two-point conversion pass play was unsuccessful following the touchdown, which left the Vikes trailing 8-6.

The game in Ronan was Mahlum’s first start as a varsity quarterback, and Emslie said it was a solid one.

“I thought Colter did a fine job,” Emslie said. “He played well for his first varsity game. He made some good decisions. He made some good reads, and he played a good game I thought.”

Ronan added a second touchdown before the close of the quarter with a 15-yard pass play from Gauthier to Hungerford. The subsequent two-point conversion play failed.

Gauthier and Hungerford each added another touchdown apiece for Ronan in the second quarter off of run plays of 11 yards and 15 yards, respectively. Both were followed with two-point conversion run plays that failed. Meanwhile the Vikes were held scoreless.

“We got our butts kicked,” Emslie said. “It was not good, period, on all facets of the game. Good job to Ronan. They were ready to play a football game.”

Bigfork played a better game after halftime, but it was too little too late.

“We made adjustments at halftime,” Emslie said. “I think that we outplayed Ronan in the second half, but we were just in too deep of a hole to overcome. We will learn from this. We have a lot to work on this week in practice.”

Bigfork’s Cody Dopps put in a goal-line score in the third quarter to bring the score to 26-12 during a period in which Ronan was held scoreless. Dillon Charlebois’ extra-point kick went wide and was no good.

With Bigfork unable to capitalize on any of the opportunities it had in the fourth quarter, Ronan put in one more touchdown in the final minutes with a 15-yard run by Jack Humphreys. A two-point conversion run play that followed was unsuccessful.

“It was just a lot of breakdowns,” Emslie said of his team’s play. “Hopefully we can build on all of that. We’re hoping this is our wake-up call.”

The Vikings will need to turn things around quickly if they want to pick up a win in their home opener Friday against Deer lodge (Powell County), which will be a nonconference game, as was the game in Ronan.

“They’re tough,” Emslie said of Deer Lodge. “They lost to Thompson Falls by one point in the last minute of the game Friday. I knew Thompson Falls was going to be tough this year, and they lost to them. They have a kid (Reno Ward) that’s going to play for the Grizzlies next year, and their quarterback is pretty tough. They’re tough. They’re going to bring it.”

Friday’s home game will have a 7 p.m. kick off.