Red Devils rising

The Red Devils are rising, and the rest of the 6-Man football teams in Montana had better take notice.

Coach Bart Haflich and his Noxon Red Devils took down the Sheridan Panthers 49-8 in Western Conference action in Noxon Friday. Now 3-1 overall and 1-0 in conference play, the Devils go to Hot Springs Friday for a key league game with the 5-0, 1-0 Savage Heat.

Coach Jim Lawson's Heat have earned respect for that school's program as evidenced by their body of work over the last several years, which includes State 6-Man championships in 2012 and 2016.

"You can count on Hot Springs being very well prepared, they are just so fundamentally sound," Haflich said. "We have been talking about this game as a team, the kids realize that it is a big one and are really looking forward to it.

"The key for us, like in any game, is to get stops and score every time we get the ball," he added. "That's the way we want to approach it anyway."

The Devils surprisingly dominant win over Sheridan should have the Devils in a confident state of mind heading into Hot Springs.

"We played well from the get-go," Haflich said. "They broke a big play early but we were mostly able to keep them pretty bottled up, and were able to move the ball pretty well ourselves."

The dominating result was a bit surprising in the fact that Noxon had struggled to defeat Reed Point/Rapelje earlier this season, and Sheridan had defeated that team by 40 points two weeks ago.

"We were a little leery of this team," Haflich said. "We respected what they were capable of and played our own game. It was a good win for us."

Senior Rylan Weltz scored Noxon's first two touchdowns on runs of 37 and 25 yards, and threw a 50-yard scoring strike to Jared Webley for the Devils' third TD.

Quarterback Brody Hill then scored on a seven-yard run before Josh Baldwin crossed the goal line on touchdown runs of 30 and seven yards in the second quarter. Gage Hendrick scored the Devils' final touchdown on a two-yard run in the third quarter when the game clock was in continuous motion due to MHSA's 35-point rule.

Derreck Christensen booted three successful two-point conversion kicks, and Weltz passed to Webley for another one-point conversion.

Sheridan's only touchdown of the game came on a 35-yard scoring pass in the first quarter.