EDITORIAL: Playoff madness peaks this weekend
Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 10 years, 1 month AGO
The playoff road leads through Helena this weekend for Kalispell football teams.
Flathead and Glacier both make trips to Montana’s capital city to open the Class AA playoffs — the Braves on Friday night against Helena Capital and the Wolfpack on Saturday afternoon against Helena High.
This marks the first time since 2011 that both Kalispell gridiron teams have qualified for the next level of Class AA play.
Flathead’s playoff bid marks an important return to the playoffs for the Braves, who enter Friday’s game with a 6-4 record. For 8-2 Glacier, Saturday’s game represents the first step on its path to try to defend its state championship from a year ago.
It’s an exciting time to be a football fan in the Flathead Valley (and not just a Kalispell football fan). Whitefish and Columbia Falls both have Class A playoff games this weekend as does Class B Bigfork.
That’s a historic lineup: Never before have all five Flathead Valley high schools been in the playoffs at the same time.
Good luck to the Wolfpack, Braves, Bulldogs, Wildcats and Vikings this weekend. Let’s keep the football season going!
Way to go, Derek!
Continuing on a sports theme, we were proud to see that Derek Crittenden, the former Whitefish Bulldog, has been named a finalist for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.
Crittenden, a defensive end, is the football team captain of the University of Montana Grizzlies and a 4.0 student. As his university adviser Ashby Kinch noted, “He is an inspiring example of... energy, enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity,” three of the traits that personify past Rhodes Scholarship winners. If he wins the award, Crittenden would study organic chemistry at the University of Oxford in England.
UM has a long history of success in the Rhodes competition, and we wish Crittenden well when he participates in the interview process the weekend of Nov. 20-21. Sadly, this will require him to miss the Cat-Griz game, but we know his team will be competing as hard on the field as he will be doing when he goes up against fellow scholars from Alaska, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.