Whitefish looks to ground Columbia Falls air attack
Whitefish travels a few miles down the road Friday night to take on Columbia Falls in a showdown of two Northwest A rivals.
The Wildcats are coming off a 48-20 loss at Dillon while the Bulldogs pounded Polson 49-0 on Friday.
Columbia Falls is led by coach Jaxon Schweikert, now in his fourth season.
Wildcat junior quarterback Dakota Bridwell (6-1, 215) leads the league with 227 yards passing per game and 16 total touchdown strikes.
Whitefish coach Chad Ross expects Bridwell to pass the ball upwards of 40 times.
“Their offense is mostly through the air,” Ross said.
Senior Stephen Lindsey (5-9, 190) leads the Columbia Falls ground game, averaging 61 yards a game with three rushing touchdowns.
“He does a great job for them,” Ross said.
Turnovers have hurt the Wildcats this season. Columbia Falls has a league-leading nine interceptions thrown — a byproduct of passing the ball so often.
Whitefish’s defensive backs, meanwhile, are tops in the conference with eight picks — three going for scores.
The stout Bulldog defense also stuffs the run, giving up less than 3 yards per rushing attempt this season.
Whitefish’s offense will keep to its game plan of establishing the run and making plays through the air.
“One of our goals is to keep the offense simple and get really good at it,” Ross said. “We have done a good job at that.”
Whitefish back Chris Park leads the league in rushing, averaging 103 yards a game with seven rushing scores.
Quarterback Luke May is averaging 159 yards passing and 77 yards rushing. His top receiver is Jed Nagler who has six touchdown catches and 472 yards reeving on the season.
Ross said there’s no denying the hype leading up to the annual rivalry game, but says Whitefish can’t let emotions cloud their focus.
“We learned that two years ago when we lost at Columbia Falls,” Ross said. “It’s one thing to get excited but don’t be so overly stimulated that you can’t focus.”
May says his team will try to overcome the hype by treating this game like any other on the schedule.
“It’s four quarters of football and we’re going to come out and play,” May said, simply.
Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Columbia Falls.