The dust was settling on Helena Capital’s 3-2 win over Glacier in the 2024 State AA softball championship last May, and DJ Rankosky found himself near the backstop, offering words of encouragement to his daughter Cazz.

She had been intimately involved in the final play, taking a relay throw an instant too late to tag Capital’s Anna Cockhill at home. Cockhill had hit what turned into a leadoff, eighth-inning, walk-off inside the park home run.  

So there was DJ Rankosky, doing dad things while his daughter glumly grabbed her catcher’s mitt of the ground — and the ball fell out.  

“You know, if that was you,” he said. “You’d want that ball.” 

So Cazz Rankosky grabbed the game ball and marched into the sea of celebrating Bruins looking for Anna Cockhill. 

Now a senior, Rankosky has been a catcher since the first time she walked on a diamond at age 6.  

“I kind of wanted to play that position because I was involved in every pitch, and get to know all the hitters,” she said this week. “And I just really liked it.” 

Except for her freshman year at Glacier — she sat out most of it with a hip injury — she’s been behind the plate ever since. It’s paid off for her and the Wolfpack: She’s hit .362 and the Pack has won 52 of 62 games, including a 19-7 state championship win in 2023. 

The record includes a 10-2 record this season, with a 6-2 mark in the Western AA. On Thursday at 5 p.m., Glacier has a home matchup with one of the few teams with a better record this season: 10-1 Missoula Big Sky. 

The conference losses came to Helena High (by a 4-3 score) and Missoula Sentinel (8-7). The Pack is in the post-Ella Farrell Era, but they still have Olivia Gibbons, Olivia Warriner and promising freshman Ava Grady (not to mention Chloe Farrell, Ella’s sister) in the circle. They are not going anywhere. 

“We’re still going to contend,” Rankosky said. “We still compete hard. We still have a good arsenal, Warriner to Gibbons to Grady.” 

Abby Snipes, Glacier’s ninth-year head coach, credits a lot of her team’s recent success to her backstop. 

“Cazz is such a stabilizing force,” Snipes said. “There’s a lot written about really successful pitchers, like Ella. I don’t think the catchers get mentioned enough, and they’re really a big part of how the magic happens. 

“She was there was for Ella, and she’s been there for at least nine different pitchers in her Glacier career. She just handles it all with a lot of grace. When she’s back there, we’re a better team.” 

Colleges noticed, especially MSU-Billings, who offered Rankosky a scholarship during her junior season.  

“They emailed my mom originally,” she remembered. “They had it from when I was at their camp my eighth-grade year. They liked how I’d developed, and the things I was doing.” 

She accepted, but then the Division II program then changed coaches after last season, replacing Lisa McKinney with Joe Yegge.   

When Yegge made a follow-up call and suggested a meeting, mom and daughter drove to Billings. Soon he was sold: Rankosky will join fellow Montanans like Kennedy Dypwick – the Sentinel product is currently the Yellowjackets’ shortstop – and Helena High products Faith Howard and Kamryn Klemp.  

Howard and Klemp are still in high school, by the way, keeping the Bengals formidable. 

“We could have cleaned up our errors, which was our big thing against Helena High and Sentinel,” Rankosky said. “Which we can easily do, because we have the athletes.” 

DJ Rankosky had a chiropractic practice when his wife was pregnant with their first child, and thought it would be good to have a baby-naming contest. 

“And if we liked any of them, the winner would get free care,” he said.  

This is how Cazzland Rankosky got her name; the daughter of a former Eureka dentist submitted it. 

It’s unique, like the player herself. Competitive, relentlessly positive and, last May, generous in defeat. 

“The Capital coach drug her through the crowd,” DJ remembered. “Anna’s mom gave her a big hug. That’s why you don’t get sideways, or all caught up in rivalries. It’s competition, but it’s healthy.” 

Big Sky, which has handed Helena its lone league loss, is next. The Wolfpack remain on task. 

“Winning a state title was always the goal,” Cazz Rankosky said. “When we were in 10U, we won a state title. Once we got to high school that was still a goal. But it’s also about having fun. Even taking second last year, that was still amazing.” 

    Glacier's Cazz Rankosky (7) cheers on her teammates after hitting a triple against Butte at Glacier High School on Tuesday, April 22. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider