Three years ago Kelly Ordway and her husband started their Saturday at the Great Northern Bar & Grill, watching a stream of the Whitefish boys’ State A soccer championship game at Billings Central.

After the Bulldogs’ 2-1 win, they went down the road to see the Whitefish girls complete a Bulldog state title sweep with a 3-1 win over Columbia Falls. 

Saturday, the Whitefish boys will be on the road to play Billings Central at Amend Park for a soccer championship; and the girls play host to Columbia Falls, which happens to be the defending State A champion.  

Other than the order — the girls play first, at 11 a.m. at Smith Fields, and the boys start at 1 p.m. — “It’s the same exact thing,” Ordway, who took over the girls program in 2024, said. “Hopefully, we get the same results.” 

It is a tall hill for either team. The girls’ regular matchups with Columbia Falls ended with a 2-1 Whitefish win and a 1-1 tie, for example. 

“They just came down to who could break through each other’s back line,” Ordway said. “We’re really closely matched, as you can see from the results.” 

Whitefish is young, with Neva Sliman back after leading the team in scoring as a freshman; Sliman surpassed her 2025 totals this season with 17 goals and seven assists. Meanwhile fellow sophomore Atley Bingham has 28 goals and 17 assists, and junior Sage Ordway has 13 goals and 15 helpers. 

“One change is Delila Vine has had a phenomenal year at center-back,” Kelly Ordway said of one of the few seniors on the squad. “That allowed Sage to move up to the midfield and join the attack at times. When we scored the tying goal at Columbia Falls, we moved Sage up.” 

Columbia Falls is every bit as dangerous on offense, with seniors Onnikka Lawrence (18 goals, 14 assists) and Riley Byrd (13 goals, 18 assists) and sophomore June Johnston (17 goals, 7 assists) leading the way. Another senior, Tatiana Raymand, has five goals and 13 helpers. 

The Wildcats did graduate quite a bit off that state title team. 

“We came into the season with five new starters,” Wildcats coach Thomas Clark said. “It took us some time to identify and shore up things in the back line. Most of the goals we’ve allowed, we conceded early in the season.” 

The back line is now solid with sophomore keeper Medora Dahlstrom along with freshman Gwynn Cummings and junior Ella Robbins at center-back alongside senior Alexa Friske.  

Beyond that, there’s a lot of firepower out there to slow down. 

“The big thing for us is the two games we played against them, their two best players scored,” Clark said, referring to Sage Ordway and Bingham. “Man, if we just get what we expect out of our main offensive pieces then we like our chances. That’s what we’re excited about.” 

Among other things. 

“They’ve been really good battles and have been in year’s past. The past two years where we ultimately won the conference, we tied with them both seasons,” Clark said. “I feel like you’ve got the two best teams facing off each other and that’s really cool, and really cool that’s it’s two teams from the Flathead.” 

“We’re really proud that both of us, two North conference teams, were able to bring the championship back to the Flathead,” Kelly Ordway said. “I loved that we had to depend on each other’s success in order to compete in an all-Flathead final.” 

Bulldog boys to Billings 

The Whitefish boys head to Billings Friday morning, in time to get on the pitch at Amend Park later that night. 

Saturday will be a rematch from Aug. 29, when the Bulldogs and Rams played to a 1-1 tie in Whitefish. 

“Good match, really tight, as was expected,” Whitefish coach Eric Sawtelle said. “ It kind of played out just like we thought it would. Saturday probably won’t be a heck of a lot different. We both have players that can really hurt each other offensively, and both have good defenses.  

“It’s going to come down to mentality and who can execute i the moments that really matter. It’s the matchup we’ve been looking forward to for a long time.” 

Freshman Roen Chisholm has 17 goals and eight assists to lead the Bulldogs; junior Graysen Rembaugh checks in at 10 and 9; senior Luca Duffy has seven goals and eight helpers. 

Billings Central’s Cal Weisen has a Class A-best 18 goals, and the Rams attack is bolstered by Lucas Sylvester and Sawyer Guenter, who have 24 points each.  

It’s the fourth straight title game appearance for Whitefish, which beat Central 1-0 for the 2023 title; the Bulldogs fell to Central in overtime in 2024 and lost to Polson last season. 

This run might be the Bulldogs’ most unexpected. 

“This has been a really interesting team,” Sawtelle said. “We graduated 11 seniors and many of them were starters. We did have a big junior class but at the beginning of the season I kind of felt like we were starting all over again.” 

One key, he said, is a senior group of defenders: Quinn Powers and Tristan Irwin are the center-backs and Tyler Larkin and Will Dohman are on the outside.  

“We’re seeing senior leadership when we really need to see it,” Sawtelle said. “What I love about this team is the unity and cohesion that they’ve shown, coming together and delivering something really important on the pitch. 

“Against Park (a 3-1 semifinal win over Livingston) we really just played some wonderful soccer.” 

TICKETS

Adults: $10; Students: $8. 

GoFan will be the only payment method. Cash will not be accepted. GoFan link: https://gofan.co/event/7008577?schoolId=MT19807