Bulldogs' winning season stops short of playoffs
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ST. IGNATIUS — The Mission Bulldogs saw their hopes of a playoff berth come up just short on consecutive nights this week.
The Bulldogs needed a win over undefeated Bigfork Thursday to secure a spot in the Class B playoffs, but the Vikings proved to be too much as they downed Mission 42-21.
Mission's playoff hopes were still alive, though, as a win by Thompson Falls over Troy Friday evening would also have put the Bulldogs in the playoffs. It was not to be for the Bulldogs, though, as Troy came away with a 20-14 overtime win to eliminate Mission from playoff contention.
The team faced a tough task in taking on the Vikings Thursday as Bigfork came into the contest with the top spot in 7B already secured.
The Bulldogs had great success in the game's opening moments, driving down the field to take a lead on a 5-yard run by Scottie Gilleard, though the PAT was blocked.
Bigfork answered with a touchdown to take a 7-6 lead, but Mission answered with a 13-yard scoring run by Austin Durglo to regain the lead. Josh Durglo added the PAT to give the Bulldogs a 13-7 advantage.
Bigfork was able to answer with another score to take a 14-13 lead after one quarter of play but the game remained close. The Vikings added a 48-yard touchdown pass from Christian Ker to Travis Knoll before the half and led 21-13 at the break.
It was all Bigfork in the second half as the Vikings added three more touchdowns to pull away for a 21-point win.
"We played hard against them. If they hadn't been so dang big, we would have been alright," Mission coach Pete Hamilton said. We were able to pound it up the middle. That's all we do. It's all we have done all year. It still got us like 300 yards rushing tonight too."
With five starting juniors and three sophomores, Hamilton said inexperience was the cause of many of the penalties that plagued the Bulldogs on Thursday, but that overall, what his team was able to do this season was outstanding.
"We did some dumb things. We were slipping all over. There were a lot of things. I think we played really hard, though, and I don't want to take anything away from my kids," he said. "It is our first winning season in 11 years and that is something to be proud of."
According to Hamilton, it was his squad's willingness to play as a team that brought such success this season.
"We just talked about it and we knew we weren't bad. We knew we were going to be really young, having lost 12 seniors from last year," he said. "We're a really small school, so we just talked about doing our jobs and playing together as a team. People don't like to play against us. We play hard. If we would have had a little bit more depth, we would have been alright."
The Bulldogs finish the season 5-3 overall and 3-2 in conference play.
Summary
Bigfork 42, Mission 21
Bigfork147147–42
Mission13080–21
M - Scotty Gilleard 5 run (kick failed)
B - Travis Knoll 8 run (Dillon Charlebois kick)
M - Austin Durglo 13 run (Josh Durglo kick)
B - Knoll 48 pass from Christian Ker (Charlebois kick)
B - Knoll 25 run (Charlebois kick)
B - Knoll 22 run (Charlebois kick)
M - Dylan Evans 4 run (Lane Wheeler run)
B - Cody Dopps 53 run (Charlebois kick)
