The Polson Pirates will venture away from home to face off against the Columbia Falls Wildcats at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. The squads are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: Polson has struggled recently with four losses in a row, while Columbia Falls will arrive with three straight wins.
Polson made up a huge gap compared to their last game against Bigfork, but they still couldn't quite topple them. The Pirates fell just short of the Vikings & Valkyries by a score of 22-19 on Friday. While the Pirates had to settle for second, they closed the game well in the third quarter, where they outscored the Vikings & Valkyries 7-0.
Although Polson took the loss, they still got scores from Eli Evenson, Holden Emerson, and Case Cox.
Meanwhile, Columbia Falls faced Whitefish in a battle between two of the state's top teams on Friday. In a tight game that could have gone either way, the Wildcats made off with a 19-18 victory over the Bulldogs. The win almost wasn't to be: the Wildcats were down 18-0 in the third quarter.
Polson better keep an eye on Banyan Johnston. He was instrumental in Columbia Falls' win, throwing for 263 yards and three touchdowns. Johnston's passing game has become a key predictor of the Wildcats' success: the team is undefeated when his passer rating is 100 or higher, but only 0-3 otherwise. Columbia Falls' leading receiver Jory Hill was Johnston's top target yet again, picking up 108 receiving yards and one TD.
Wins are hard to come by when you can't run the rock, something Columbia Falls proved: they limited Whitefish to a paltry 2.2 yards per carry. The team can thank Trip Ross for the heroic effort on defense: he. Sadly, that's becoming something of a trend for Columbia Falls; they were averaging 4.9yards per carry per game earlier this season, but in their last three matchups they've fallen to only 4.5 per game.
The victory got Columbia Falls back to even at 3-3. As for Polson, their defeat dropped their record down to 2-4.
Polson was dealt a bruising 42-0 loss at the hands of Columbia Falls in their previous matchup back in September of 2024. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Johnston, who threw for 309 yards and four touchdowns while completing 90% of his passes. Now that the Pirates know the damage he can cause, will they be able to stop him this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
