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Butte High, BC fall in playoff games
Halloween night proved to be a brutal one for the Butte High and Butte Central football teams.
As Butte High dropped a 42-6 Class AA playoff game to Great Falls Russell at Memorial Stadium Friday night in Great Falls, the Maroons fell 52-6 to Whitefish in the Class A playoffs.
Butte High’s loss came after the Bulldogs won a pair of inspired games to qualify for the postseason, and it can be blamed on a slow start.
CMR took advantage of a pair of short field situations to jump out to a quick 14-0 lead, and the Rustlers never looked back. The first two touchdown drives went for a combined 60 yards. (Game stats)
The Rustlers forced the Bulldogs to punt after three plays on the opening drive of the game. Six plays and one 15-yard facemask penalty later, and Hunter Lee scored on a 5-yard run to give CMR the lead for good.
One play after a Bulldog fumble, Caleb Taylor found Ben Cunningham for a 16-yard scoring strike. That was the first of four TD passes for Taylor, who completed 17 of 24 passes for 281 yards.
Two TDs went to Cunningham, who hauled in seven passes for 93 yards. Jaxon Dixon and Drew Etcheberry also caught a touchdown pass. Dixon caught four passes for 107 yards.
The Rustlers also put the clamps down on the Butte High passing game, holding the Bulldogs to just 45 yards through the air. The Bulldog running game did some damage, racking up 137 yards on 33 carries. That is an average of 4.2 yards per carry.
However, the Bulldogs could not turn that into points until the last play of the game, when junior quarterback Raeder Grey hit classmate Koda Schleeman for a touchdown.
Senior Peyton Johnson ran for 67 yards on 12 carries, and Grey scrambled for 70 yards on 21 carries. The yardage came behind an offensive line made up of seniors Waylond Hicks, Kaydyn Sommer, Gannon Sullivan, Keegan Swisher and Grady Foley.
Senior Hudson Luedtke caught four passes, while senior Brooks Vincent and sophomore Kodye Kjersten each caught two.
CMR (6-4) advances to the quarterfinals, where they will take on Missoula Big Sky Friday in Missoula. Butte High closes the season at 3-7.
The loss closes the book on the prep football careers for seniors Cayde Stajcar, Johnson, Kaleb Celli, Gunner Bushman, Jeremiah Johnson, Mitch Verlanic, Luedtke, Vincent, Preston Jensen, Cole Coyne, Jacob Galle, Bridger Brancamp, Caden Phillips, Hicks, Sommer, Foley, Sullivan, Carlos Navarra and Drew Hanson.
Stajcar, who started his freshman through junior years, missed the season with a medical issue, while Jensen missed most of the season with an injury.
Luedtke, a four-year starter, is a candidate to be a four-year All-State player.
In Whitefish, junior quarterback Luke Dalen had a huge night to lead the Bulldogs to the win over the Maroons. (Game stats)
Dalen completed 16 of 12 passes for 218 years. He ran 12 times for 123 yards and three touchdowns.
Senior running back Cole Moses added 77 yards and two scores on the ground for Whitefish, which led 28-6 at the half. He scored on runs of 55 and 26 yards.
Freshman running back Henly Mansanti scored BC’s lone touchdown, a 4-yard run that cut the lead to 14-6 in the second quarter. The point after was blocked.
Senior quarterback Ryan Peoples passed for 66 yards and ran for 39 more. Mansanti and senior Jack Nagle each caught three passes, while junior Joshua Sutton and sophomore Treigh Hollow each grabbed two.
Whitefish (7-2) heads to Laurel to take on the Central A champion Locomotives in the quarterfinals. The Maroons close the season at 5-4, which is their best record since going 5-4 in 2017.
Central, which won four straight games during the regular season, made the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
The loss closes the high school football career for seniors Nagle, Peoples, Keltan Keane, Manny Weang, Tony Stajcar, J.J. Taylor and Colt Hassler. Keane missed all but the opening kickoff of the season with a knee injury.
Maroon volleyball bows out
Butte Central’s volleyball team’s season came to an end with a four-set loss at Corvallis Thursday in a Western A Divisional play-in match.
The Maroons, though, did not go down without a fight. After winning a 28-26 thriller in the opening set, BC fell 25-14, 25-22 and 25-23.
Despite the early ending, the Maroons showed constant improvement throughout the season under first-year head coach Karina Mickelson.
Central will lose seniors Logan LeProwse, Arika Stajcar and Izabel Lopez, but they return a young core of players for the future.
This year’s varsity roster included juniors Presli Smith and Rylee Forbes and sophomores Kodee Badovinac, Braelynn Schelin, Jaedyn Maldonado, Kenzie McQueary, Zayonna Otherbull and Natalie Osterman.
The junior varsity roster included junior Alexandra Morey; sophomores Cambri Campbell, Ayanna Weang, Evyn Smith and Olivia Scott; and eighth graders Jordyn Samson and Luci Fantini.
Bulldog spikers close season
Butte High’s volleyball season came to an end Thursday as the Bulldogs fell in three sets at Helena Capital. The Bulldogs were eliminated from playoff contention before the match.
Capital won 25-19, 25-21 and 25-22. (Boxscore)
Junior Avery Barsness spiked nine kills, and senior Gracie Jonart added eight to lead the Bulldog attack. Junior Brittyn Klima contributed with five kills for the Bulldogs, who got three from senior Audrey McClafferty and two apiece from juniors Allie Becker and Stella Callaghan.
Jonart and senior Mackenzie Dayhuff each served two aces, and the Dogs got a pair of blocks from Klima and McClafferty.
Freshman setter Ellison Graham ran the Butte offense, dishing up 26 assists, and junior Cadence Graham led the Butte backcourt with26 digs. Ellison Graham (16) and Becker (11) also reached double figures in digs. Jonart dug eight, and junior Ellie Yates collected four.
The Bulldogs close the season at 4-21 overall and 3-11 in Western AA play.
McClafferty, Jonart and Dayhuff are the lone seniors on the team, which will return Barsness, Becker, the Graham sisters, Yates, Klima, Callaghan sophomore Gia Field and freshman Saege Grey from the varsity roster.
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This boy will not have to worry about living with regret
My son could hardly keep up as we walked the dogs around the Big M. I had to stop so much that the dogs were getting tired of me waiting for him to catch up.
He was 13 and about to start eighth grade, and this was the only exercise he could do. He could not move very fast. The walk took me twice as long as when I did it with just the dogs.
Earlier that summer, we finally got good news from a neurologist at the Seattle Children’s Hospital. He did not have muscular dystrophy, as we and some medical professionals feared. Instead, his leg muscles were nearly destroyed by the high doses of steroids he needed to keep him alive during a pair of asthma attacks that led to Life Flights to Missoula.
He would grow out of his condition, the neurologist said, but he needed to work hard if he was going to be any kind of an athlete. He would have to work twice as hard as most of his teammates and competitors.
A few years earlier, he was having a hard time deciding whether he would be a Hall of Fame running back or a Hall of Fame third baseman. As he struggled to keep up on the mostly-flat 1.3-mile walk around the mountain that day, he figured he would never play sports again.
There was no chance he could play football that fall, just like he could not play in the sixth or seventh grade. But I tried to talk him into playing football when he got to high school. I really wanted him to play for Butte High coach Arie Grey, a coach I respected since he took over the program when my son was a baby.
I told my son that he has a chance to someday be a member of a Butte High team that could do some serious damage.
I told him how I quit the football team at Butte Central after my freshman year, and I really wish I would have kept playing. As a senior, I listened on the radio as my former teammates played in the Class A State championship game.
Since that day, I have had a giant hole of regret in my soul, and nothing could ever fill it.
You only have one spin on this space rock as it spirals around the Milky Way, and, as they say, youth is wasted on the young. If I could go back in time, I would make the decision to keep playing football 100 times out of 100.
The Maroons did not win that championship game, but the boys on that team have a bond that will last a lifetime. They were teammates then, and they will be teammates forever.
Butte High, I said, could win the state championship. Even if he was a third-string center, he would be a state champion for the rest of his life.
Of course, Butte High did not win a state title in his years at the school, but that does not change the ties that those players will have forever. It isn’t just the Friday nights and the wins and losses that bind. It’s the practices, the film room and the early mornings lifting weights that build a team.
It’s the unity, the togetherness. It is the daring to be a part of something that is bigger than yourself. That goes for all team sports, but it goes at least double for football.
The boy played football as a freshman. He was 5-feet-4 and 225 pounds. He worked hard, but he was heavy and slow. The freshman team did not win a game that season, though it might have gone undefeated if the two best freshmen in the school were not starting for the varsity.
He thought about quitting after his freshman year. A bunch of his friends did, too, because they did not like the freshman coaches.
That is why I quit football. I hated my freshman coaches. I hated that they made us freshman run the dreaded “Big 3” because our locker room was messy. They did that after they knew it was the sophomores who messed it.
I was too shortsighted to see that those coaches were trying to build us up. They were trying to make us tough, and that worked for most of the team. That’s why so many of my teammates played in the championship game three years later.
That, I told him, is what the coaches were doing to his team, but he wasn’t buying it.
So, I wrote a column to try to convince my son and his buddies to keep playing. In that column, I told them about my regret. I also wrote that the freshman coaches made a goof by getting themselves burgers, fries and shakes from Five Guys while the players washed down their cold pizza with bus-temperature water after the season-opening Great Falls Jamboree.
My son did not mention the Five Guys incident to me. One of his friends did, and some other boys agreed that it really bothered them. One player called it the “most disheartening thing he saw in his life.”
He must have had an easy life.
Yes, it was a mistake by the coaches to put themselves ahead of the team in that moment, but I assured the boys that those coaches were working those long, thankless hours for them. They were taking time away from their families for them.
Sure, I was a little mad when I recently found out some coaches teased my son about that column for three years. He was not the source of that information, and it irritated me that the adults would take something out on a boy for something I wrote.
When I saw the hugs after the last game of the senior year, though, I realized that that teasing was out of love. I felt bad for feeling otherwise, even if those feelings were brief.
Those coaches would lie down on the street for any of those players. They do not coach for themselves. They do it to help turn boys into men, and that is what did.
This past year, my boy played varsity as a senior. He worked so hard that he lost 35 pounds since his freshman year, even as he grew 9 inches.
He played a ton on the defensive line some games. Other games he did not play as much. I think he felt like he was letting me down on the games when he didn’t see the field as much, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Just seeing him as part of that team each week was like watching him win the Super Bowl. I could not possibly be prouder of my son, who has always been an outstanding teammate. When he did not make the play, he was the first to celebrate the player who did.
That, I believe, is what being part of a team is all about.
These Bulldogs did not win the state championship. They made a late-season run to qualify for the playoffs, where they fell 42-6 on the road against Great Falls Russell.
Even if the season ended long before they wanted, those boys on that team will always have a bond. They will always have a brotherhood. When they go to their 50th class reunion, they will talk about that team.
They will remember some of the wins and losses. Even more, they will remember the practices and the bus rides. That connection will truly last a lifetime.
It will also be a memory my wife and I will never forget. As we watched him play in his last game, we could not help but think of the helpless feeling of driving and flying around looking for answers. We could not help but think about the sleepless nights thinking our son could be confined to a wheelchair.
Instead, we got to watch him make memories with his teammates. They were not championship memories, but they were good memories. The best memories.
They were the kind of memories that mean my boy will never have to worry about trying to fill that giant hole of regret like I do.
— Bill Foley, who is OK with eating cold pizza, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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Two teams unbeaten after Week 2
Two weeks into the 10th season of the Rock 3 on 3 Youth Basketball League, and just two teams remain unbeaten.
The Lil Ballers are 4-0 in the league for boys in the third and fourth grade, while the Bellmont Ballers reached 4-0 with two more wins in the league for boys in fifth and sixth grade.
Tucker McIntyre, Brody Evenson, Conner Gallagher and Hunter Liston make up the Belmont Ballers. The Pit Crew, Headframe Hoopers and the Rock Chuckers all sit at 3-1 through two weeks.
Kasen Carpino, Jaxon Bair, Case Chambers and Logan Regan play for the Lil Ballers. The Silver Nuggets are the only 3-1 team in the league. Mining City Heat, the Butte Buckets, the Tommyknockers and Berkeley Lakers are all 2-2.
Each team will play two games on Sunday afternoons through Nov. 23. Click the link below to see Week 2 scores, standings and the Week 3 schedule.
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Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week: Peyton Johnson, Mackenzie Dayhuff
Butte High football player Peyton Johnson and Butte High volleyball player MacKenzie Dayhuff are this week’s Leskovar Honda Athletes of the Week.
The honors come after the Bulldog football and volleyball seasons came to an end.
Johnson, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound senior running back takes home the boys’ honor. Johnson started his career with the Bulldogs playing receiver, and he transitioned nicely to running back.
During his senior year, Johnson ran 152 times for a team-leading 521 yards. He was also used as a reliable blocker in the backfield and a viable option in the passing game.
In Butte High’s playoff loss at Great Falls Russell, Johnson ran for 67 hard-earned yards of 12 carries. That’s an average of 5.6 yards per carry.
Dayhuff, a 5-6 senior defensive specialist, was a role player for the Bulldog volleyball team. She was also an ace behind the service line, ranking second on the team with 22 aces on the season.
She ranked among the Bulldog leaders with 75 sets played, and she was ultra reliable receiving serves.
One of three seniors on the team, Dayhuff collected 42 digs on the season.
For the third year, Leskovar Honda is teaming up with the ButteCast to honor the finest student-athletes from the Mining City to encourage more children to get up, get out and try all kinds of sports and activities.
Photos courtesy Alycia Holland Photography.
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KC basketball schedule
Following is the Knights of Columbus Athletic Club’s four-man basketball schedule for the week of Nov. 3.
Monday
7 p.m. — Kenworthy vs. Parish
8 p.m. — Hoopballas vs. JellyfamTuesday
7 p.m. — Everett-Cook Law vs. Rosary Rattlers
8 p.m. — Everett-Cook Law vs. Poi Time
9 p.m. — Poi Time vs. RanchmensWednesday
7 p.m. — Washington Generals vs. Someday Starters
8 p.m. — Ranchmens vs. JellyfamThursday
7 p.m. — Kenworthy vs. Rosary Rattlers
8 p.m. — Someday Starters vs. Hoopballas
9 p.m. — Washington Generals vs. Parish
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Podcast No. 299: Dr. Jim Barry
Dr. Jim Barry was — and I suppose will always be — a “Muni Kid.”
That means, like a lot of us, Jim grew up golfing at the Highland View Golf Course in the Jack Crowley days. He would get dropped off early in the morning and play golf at the Muni all day long.
The 1989 Butte High graduate was a very good golfer, too, playing for legendary coach Ed Yoe on a Butte High golf team that specialized in having fun. Jim raced on skis, and he was a receiver for the Butte High football team. As a junior in 1987, Jim caught a 13-yard touchdown pass from Todd Paffhausen in Butte High’s 29-6 win over Butte Central.
Today, Jim is a doctor in Denver. Of course, that statement does not even begin to describe what he does. He is the medical director of the University of Colorado Hospital, Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. He is a professor with the Department of Pediatrics, Section of Neonatology at the University of Colorado Medicine.
He has been on the cutting edge of treating very sick infants for a quarter of a century.
Every day, Jim learns more about his profession, too. He is currently working to incorporate AI into the practice of medicine, and he is excited about the possibilities.
Before all that, though, Jim grew up on the Big Hole River in Divide, where he attended a two-room school house. The went to West Junior High School before attending Butte High, Montana State University and Creighton University Medical School. His education has never really stopped.
Listen in to this episode as Jim he talks about growing up on the river and at the Muni. Listen as he talks about how he cheered for his former Butte High teammates at the University of Montana, even though he was a student at MSU.
Listen in to hear Jim talk about his family, career and how he is still as excited about medicine as he has ever been. Listen why Jim is not ready to retire, and we are all glad that he did not listen to a high school test result and become a garbage man. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Today’s episode is presented by the Jewelry Design Center. Let Brian Toone and Co. be your jewelers for life.
This episode is available on YouTube.
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Peoples, Yotes play in Helena, Dillon
COI battles Saints, Dawgs
Butte native Dougie Peoples and the defending NAIA national champion College of Idaho men’s basketball team will play the first two games of its title defense an hour away from the Mining City.
The Yotes will be in Helena Saturday to take on Carroll College in a 6 p.m. game at the P.E. Center. COI will then play Montana Western in a 5 p.m. game Monday at Straugh Gymnasium in Dillon.
COI dropped a 111-63 exhibition game Saturday at NCAA Division I University of Wyoming Saturday. Peoples led the Yotes offense with 22 points on 7-for-14 shooting. He sank three 3-pointers and grabbed four rebounds.
The 6-foot-5, 175-pound Peoples won the Montana Gatorade Player of the Year in 2023, the year he graduated from Butte Central. In March of 2022, Peoples hit a 27-foot shot at the buzzer to give the Maroons a 61-58 win over Lewistown in the Class A State championship game in Missoula. He scored 37 points in that title game.
During his prep career, Peoples scored more points than any high school boy in Mining City history. Without tossing in a single varsity point as a freshman, Peoples closed his career with 1,683 points for the Maroons. Only Butte High’s Lexie Nelson, who scored 1,696 from 2007 through 2010, scored more points playing high school basketball in Butte.
Peoples also owns BC’s single-game record for points scored in a game with 44.
In the 2025 NAIA national championship game, Peoples scored 21 points in 15 minutes of the Yotes’ 93-65 win over Oklahoma Wesleyan. He shot 5 for 7 from 3-point land in the March 25 game, which was played at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. The win capped a 35-2 campaign for the Yotes.
The College of Idaho will host the Taco Bell Shootout Nov. 7-8 in Caldwell.
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Maroons, Dogs hit the road for playoffs
The football teams from Butte Central and Butte High will hit the road for the Montana football playoffs Friday.
Central plays at Whitefish in the Class AA playoffs (bracket), while Butte High will head to the Electric City to take on Great Falls Russell in the Class AA playoffs (bracket). Both games kickoff at 7 p.m.
The Maroons are making their first playoff appearance since 2019 after knocking off nemesis Dillon 38-27 Friday night on Montana Tech’s Bob Green Field. They are facing Whitefish in the playoffs for the first time since Marcus Ferriter and the Maroons terrorized the Bulldogs in a 37-13 semifinal win in 2014.
The winner of the first-round game will play at Central A champion Laurel next Friday.
Whitefish finished the regular season at 6-2 and placed second in the Northwestern A at 4-1. The team’s lone conference loss was a 19-18 home decision to league champion Columbia Falls on Oct. 10.
The Bulldogs closed the season with road wins over Libby and Bigfork.
Whitefish enters the game with a strong rushing attack, led by junior dual-threat quarterback Luke Dalen. He has completed 61 percent of his passes for 861 yards, eight touchdowns and five interceptions. On the ground, Dalen has racked up 450 yards and 12 scores.
Senior Cole Moses has parted the opposing defenses for a 6.8 yards-per-carry average for 745 yards and six touchdowns.
Junior Vlad Shestak is Dalen’s go-to receiver. He has hauled in 27 receptions for 470 yards and two touchdowns.
The Whitefish defense has picked off 14 passes, with Shestak, senior Cooper Akey and junior Sam Ranford each hauling in three
Senior quarterback Ryan Peoples leads the BC offense into the playoff tilt. He passed for 1,618 yards and 19 touchdowns in the eight regular-season games. He was picked off six times.
Peoples has some serious weapons on his side, led by junior GG Fantini’s 26 receptions for 26 yards. Senior Jack Nagle caught 21 passes for 291 yards, and junior Joshua Sutton grabbed 20 passes for 476 yards.
Fantini, Nagle and Sutton have each scored four receiving touchdowns. Sutton and Fantini have both returned kicks for touchdowns.
Freshman Henly Mansanti leads the team with 130 yards rushing. He and Peoples have each scored a pair of rushing TDs behind an offensive line made up of seniors Colt Hassler and J.J. Taylor, and juniors Burkley Lakkala, Jack Nylund and Bobby McCarthy.
Sutton’s three interceptions leads the team. Sophomore Jaxon Hiatt has picked off two, while junior Noah Sutton, seniors Tony Stajcar and Manny Weang joined Fantini and Mansanti with one.
The Butte High Bulldogs woke up in a big way, winning their last two games in convincing fashion to qualify for the playoffs as the No. 6 seed from the Western AA. CMR is the No. 3 seed from the Eastern AA.
The winner of the battle at Memorial Stadium will head to Missoula to take on Western AA champion Big Sky.
Eight days after thumping Missoula Hellgate 36-10 at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, the Bulldogs celebrated Senior Night with a 17-0 win over Helena Capital, ending the season for their old nemesis.
Junior quarterback Raeder Grey has performed well since taking over behind center in the fourth game of the season. He has completed 59 percent of his passes for 1,033 yards and nine touchdowns. He has been picked off twice.
Grey is also a threat on the ground, where he has picked up 250 yards (with sacks factored in) for three scores.
Senior Peyton Johnson leads the team with 454 yards rushing behind an offensive line made up of Keegan Swischer, Kadyn Sommer, Gannon Sullivan, Waylond Hicks and Grady Foley, and junior Mason Swanson. Foley saw his first time at right tackle in place of Swanson, who left the Capital game with an injury.
Senior Gunner Bushman has emerged as a short-yardage threat for the Bulldogs. He has punched in four touchdowns.
Senior tight end Hudson Luedtke, who has positioned himself for a fourth straight All-State selection, has caught 69 passes for 748 yards and six touchdowns.
Senior Kaleb Celli added 25 catches for 291 yards and three scores.
Juniors Brady Walsh and Koda Schleeman and sophomore Kodye Kjersten are also threats in the passing game for the Bulldogs.
Senior defensive back Mitch Verlanic leads the Bulldogs with 93 total tackles. Junior Jaeger Hansen flows with 68, while Bushman has 61.
Junior backer Finn Wortham has racked up 47 take downs since stepping into the starting lineup for injured classmate Miner Lee.
Luedtke, junior Bradey Doyle, Grey, Kjersten, senior Bridger Brancamp, senior Jacob Galle, Foley, Sommer and junior Kason Snyder have racked up double digits in tackles. Brancamp leads the team with six sacks, and Verlanic has a team-best three interceptions.
Hansen picked of two passes, while Kjersten, Hicks, Doyle and Luedtke each grabbed one.
Doyle also handles place kicking duties for the Bulldogs. Sophomore Tegan Duffy kicks off, and senior Brooks Vincent, who doubles as a receiver, handles the punting.
CMR enters the game after closing the season with a 16-3 loss to Great Falls High last week. That loss snapped a three-game winning streak for the Rustlers, who bounced back from a 40-0 loss at Billings West with a 25-0 win over Billings Senior, a 27-21 victory at Bozeman, and a 32-8 home win over Billings Skyview.
Senior quarterback Caleb Taylor is completing 58 percent of his passes. He racked up 1,512 yards and eight touchdowns. He was picked off five times.
Drew Etcheberry’s 37 receptions for 448 yards leads the CMR receiving crops. Blake Herda has 25 grabs for 244 yards, and junior Ben Cunningham added 21 grabs for 358. Senior Jaxon Dixon joined Herda and Cunningham with two receiving TDs.
Junior Donavin Scribner has 468 yards on the ground, while senior Hunter Lee has scored eight touchdowns on the ground.
Lee leads the team with 70 total tackles, and classmate Damon Montano picked off three passes.
Butte High won a first-round game on the same field last Nov. 1, beating Great Falls High 21-17. This is the first meeting between the Bulldogs and Rustlers since Butte High toppled CMR 52-21 Sept. 6, 2019 in Great Falls.
Bengals stop Dogs in four
Senior Night started off on the right foot for the Butte High volleyball team Tuesday night at the Richardson Gym.
The Bulldogs honored seniors Makenzie Dayhuff, Audrey McClafferty and Gracie Jonart, and their parents, before taking the first set 25-21 from Helena High. The Bengals, though, stormed back with wins of 25-18, 25-20 and 25-21 to win the Western AA match. (Boxscore)
The loss ends Butte High’s chances of qualifying for the Class AA playoffs.
Junior Allie Becker tallied 14 kills to lead Butte High’s attack. Jonart spiked 10 kills, while junior Avery Barsness followed with six, and freshman Ellison Graham killed four.
Juniors Cadence Graham and Ellie Yates each served three aces. Becker, who served two aces, led five Bulldogs in double figures with 23 digs. Cadence Graham collected 15 digs, Ellison Graham followed with 14, and Jonart and Yates each dug 10.
The Bulldogs will close the season Thursday with a Western AA match at Helena Capital.
Central puts season on the line
Butte Central’s volleyball team closed the regular season with a trio of three-set losses in the last week. The Maroons fell 25-5, 25-6, 25-10 Thursday at Frenchtown before returning home and dropping a 25-7, 25-13, 25-9 decision Saturday to Hamilton. Then, BC fell 25-18, 25-17, 25-15 Tuesday night in Dillon.
Now, the Maroons will put their season on the line Thursday in a Western A Divisional play-in match at Corvallis. First serve is set for 6 p.m. for the battle, and the winner will play in another play-in match on Saturday.
Saturday’s winner will advance to the Western A Divisional in Libby Nov. 6-8.
Before Saturday’s match, the Maroons honored seniors Arika Stajcar and Logan LeProwse and their parents. Other members of the BC varsity team are juniors Rylee Forbes and Presli Smith and sophomores Kodee Badovinac, Braelynn Schelin, Jaedyn Maldonado, Kenzie McQueary, Zayonna Otherbull and Natalie Osterman.
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Senior Night turned out to be special
Senior Night is for the moms. That is something I have said for years.
The mothers make a huge deal out of the last home game for their senior players, and the fathers kind of uncomfortably go through the motions.
As I walked through the blowup Bulldog onto Naranche Stadium with my senior son, his mother, grandmother and two sisters Friday night, I realized that I might have been wrong about that.
As we walked, I was filled with pride that my son was a Butte High Bulldog. Not only was it an honor to watch my boy play for the home team at Naranche Stadium, it was something that I did not think was possible just a few years ago.
In 2021, we thought he might be headed to a life in a wheelchair because he was showing some real signs of having muscular dystrophy. We drove around the state and took him to children’s hospitals in Salt Lake City and Seattle before we finally got some good news.
Instead of an irreversible genetic disorder, Grady was suffering from side effects from the heavy doses of medicine he was given during severe asthma attacks that required Life Flights to Missoula in 2015 and 2019.
In July of 2021, a little more than a month before he started eighth grade, a Seattle neurologist told us that Grady would grow out his problems. The high doses of steroids destroyed his leg muscles and made him gain weight. He needed physical therapy to learn how to run again.
During his physical for his freshman year of football, Grady was 5 feet, 4 inches and 225 pounds. During his physical for his senior year, he was measured at 6-1, and 190. He grew 9 inches and lost 35 pounds.
That was all fueled by his desire to win football games with the Bulldogs. When he wasn’t lifting with the team early in the morning, he was spending his Saturday nights working out at the Knights of Columbus. So, every snap he takes for the team makes me beam with pride.
But that pride does not stop with my son. As we walked onto the field for Senior Night Friday, I thought about so many of the other seniors who were walking with their families at Naranche and with Butte Central on Montana Tech’s Bob Green Field.
I coached or coached against many of them in baseball and grade school basketball. Others I just know from watching them play with my son. I couldn’t help but get a little emotional when I thought about them playing their last football games on their home turf, too.
Because of health reasons, Cayde Stajcar did not play football his senior year, but he is very much a part of the team, wearing his No. 0 to every game. I knew Cayde was going to be something special the first Saturday morning I took my son to play in the Knights of Columbus Little Kids Hoops Program.
Not only was Cayde an incredible athlete at a young age, he went out of his way to make sure the other boys and girls got to shoot and have fun.
As a Little League coach, I never beat one of Cayde’s team. The same could be said for Brooks Vincent, who just seems to be so dang good at every sport he tries.
I have photos of a tiny Kaleb Celli and Grady with Montana Tech stars like Zach Bunney, Quinn McQueary and Nolan Saracini. I’ll never forget throwing him passes from our deck to the trampoline as Kaleb gave me instructions to “Odell me” so he could make a one-handed catch like Odell Beckham Jr.
Now Kaleb is making those tough catches for the Bulldogs, and in the playoffs, nonetheless.
Hudson Luedtke will go down as one of the greatest Butte High athletes of all time. He is the all-time leading scorer for the basketball program — with one year left to play — and should earn All-State honors in football for the fourth straight year.
I have followed the career of Gunner Bushman since his mother and I were competing sixth-grade basketball coaches. I thought baseball was his best game until I saw him play defense for the football team this year.
College coaches should be beating down his door.
That goes for Mitch Verlanic, too. For the past two years, he has proven to be one of the best Butte High defensive players of the century.
I coached Bridger Brancamp in baseball, and he did not like baseball too much. Football and wrestling are more his game, and nobody on the team works harder than him in the weight room.
Jeremiah Johnson used to walk into my house, grab the remote control and turn Netflix to “Quarterback.” He told me he was going to play for Oregon. He’s not, but he is one of my favorite Bulldogs of all time, even though he doesn’t play a ton.
Just hearing his name, or nickname “Niner,” makes me smile.
Peyton Johnson has some blazing speed, and he turned out to be one heck of a running back, just like his cousins Kameron and Kobe Moreno.
I feel like I know Kadyn Sommer, Gannon Sullivan, Waylon Hicks and Keegan Swisher because I always focused so much on the trenches. That is something parents of linemen do.
Over at BC, Ryan Peoples taught my son how to climb a fence. They were climbing into the baseball field while their older siblings played in a coach-pitch game.
A year or two later, Ryan was Grady’s first fight. I’m not sure who won that fight at the Stodden Park playground. But Round 2 nearly started when they argued about the outcome.
I knew the name Colt Hassler long before Grady played with him on the Dirt Ballers baseball team. He could hit the baseball out of sight by the time he was 11 years old.
Everyone calls Kelton Keane “Stewie” or “Stew.” He was primed for a big senior year. Unfortunately, he injured his knee on the first kickoff off the season this year. I truly hope he will be back in time to play baseball.
I’ve known Tony Stajcar’s parents for nearly 40 years. While he probably gets his speed from his dad, Mark, I know he gets his toughness from his mom, Annette, whom I still call “Gert.” Tony is almost as tough as his twin sister, Arika, who plays volleyball and basketball for the Maroons.
I got to talk to Jack Nagle after he booted a last-second field-goal to lift the Maroons to a win over Hardin earlier this season. It was the only BC game I got to watch this year because the Maroons and Bulldogs always play at the same time, and not against each other. I wish I could have seen him play a few more times.
Those are just some of the senior football players I feel like I know pretty well. I also followed the careers of so many seniors who play volleyball, soccer and golf. For instance, volleyball player Gracie Jonart smacked at least 200 hits off me when I was the pitcher in her coach-pitch games.
I also knew Mattie Stepan was a tough competitor when, as a first grader, she delivered the hardest foul of Grady’s basketball career at the KC.
As her dad pointed out, though, Grady missed the free throws, so it was a good foul.
So, I did not hear much of what the public address announcer was saying about Grady as we took the arm-in-arm senior walk. The PA system at Naranche leaves much to be desired, plus I was thinking about all those seniors.
That is about the time I realized that Senior Night is not just for the moms.
— Bill Foley, who is usually uncomfortably going through the motions, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
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Butte Sports Hall of Fame now accepting nominations for 2026
The nomination period for the Butte Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2026 will be open from now until the end of the year.
Athletes must be nominated to be considered for the Butte Sports Hall of Fame, and only those nominated before the deadline will be considered. No exceptions will be made.
Those nominated in the last several selection processes do not need to be re-nominated. Re-nominations, though, can be made for the purpose of providing more information on a nominee.
Candidates who are 15 years or more removed from high school and have finished competing at their highest level of their sport are eligible for selection into the Hall. Categories are also available for head coaches, old timers (50 plus years) and contributors.
A public forum will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 26 at the McQueen Club. The forum will allow people to make a presentation on behalf of nominees in front of the selection committee. All presentations will be strictly limited to 3 minutes. Letters of recommendation and/or short videos of support can be submitted to the Hall of Fame selection committee.
The 2026 inductees will be named in February, and the Green Jacket and Induction ceremonies will be held July 24 and 25 at the Butte Civic Center.
To submit a nomination, email as much information as possible to Bill Foley at foles74@gmail.com.
For more information, call or text Foley at (406) 491-3022.
The ButteCast with Bill Foley 