Clark Fork football caps unbeaten season in 60-12 win
It’s the goal, if not the dream of every team and every player who dons the pads and plays football.
Unbeaten and untied…in the regular season.
That goal was emphatically achieved Friday night in Arlee when the visiting Clark Fork Mountain Cats came to town and rolled the Warriors 60-12 in a Montana 8-man football game. The second-ranked Mountain Cats, a co-op team featuring players from Superior and Alberton, ran their season record to 9-0 and now await a home playoff game against Shelby, the fifth-place finisher from the North division.
Senior running back Trey Green led the Clark Fork charge, scoring six rushing touchdowns and returned an interception for another score as the Cats jumped to an early lead and never looked back.
Green opened the scoring with a 3-yard run in the early minutes of the first quarter, then ran for a successful 2-point point after conversion to give Clark Fork an 8-0 lead.
Arlee, which wrapped up its season with a 2-7 record, answered that score a short time later when Colt Crawford threw a 63-yard touchdown pass, closing the gap to 8-6.
From that point on the powerful Mountain Cats running game, along with a pair of TD throws from quarterback Bryan Mask, kicked into high gear and left the Warriors in the rear view mirror.
Green scored his second touchdown of the opening quarter on a 52-yard romp. A point after pass from Mask to Kyler Francis upped the Cat lead to 16-6.
With Mask at the offensive controls, the score continued to grow, first on a 25-yard scoring strike hauled in by Jake Callaway, then a 30-yard heave to Wesley Buchanan. At the end of the first quarter it was 30-6 Clark Fork.
The second quarter was the Trey Green show. Green blew by the Arlee defenders for a 67-yard TD jaunt, then scored another touchdown via the ground to boost the lead to 42-6. Green tacked on another running score when he dashed in from 38 yards out, and followed that with a short, 3-yard TD plunge to give the Cats a 54-6 halftime advantage.
With the clock running non-stop via the 35-point mercy rule, the second half didn’t last long. But not before Green added his seventh TD of the game on a 12-yard interception return.
Arlee’s Crawford scored from 24 yards out in the fourth quarter to wrap up the game’s scoring.
With two successful 2-point after TD conversions, Green accounted for 48 of the Cats’ point total.
The Clark Fork win assured them of at least one home playoff game, which was to be determined this week.
They will no doubt be among the heavy favorites to win a state 8-man title heading into post-season play.