A season to remember

This will be a high school memory, an experience that those involved with will never forget; and will become richer with the retelling each time.

Talk about an unforgettable playoff football game – a Red Devil sporting moment that will live in Noxon sports lore for many years to come – fans in Noxon will probably never tire of telling the tale of the 2020 Red Devils and how their short but sweet season memorably ended, in a blizzard of historic proportions on a field far, far away from the West End of Sanders County.

Coach Bart Haflich and his Devils, the No. 3 seeded team from the west in the Montana 6-Man playoffs, lost 38-14 in Harlowton to the Harlowton-Ryegate Engineers, the No. 1 seed from the south Friday, right at the height of the epic fall snowstorm which visited Montana last week.

Thinking back to his playing days, Haflich said that he and his players will now always look back on this cold day in Harlowton fondly. “I love snow games, they are just so different,” he said. “And it never stopped snowing all game long, there was like eight inches on the field by the end of the game.”

Maybe because of the snow, or maybe not, Harlowton-Ryegate jumped out to a 20-0 lead by halftime.

“We dug a hole for ourselves early with some costly turnovers,” Haflich said. “Maybe because of the weather we put the ball on the ground a few times (fumbled) and dropped several passes that we may normally have caught.

“It was pretty nasty weather,” he added, “a slick field and very cold. Not ideal conditions for football.”

But ideal conditions for a vivid memory of that playoff game in a snowstorm, a memory that Haflich and all his players will now carry with them forever. Those memories were deepened further by a harrowing bus ride to Helena after the game, and by a slow, challenging bus trip the rest of the way home the next day.

“I am very happy with this team, it was just such a goofy year with the COVID stuff and everything,” he said, “but this is still something that they will remember forever.

“It’s a bummer for our seniors, getting only four regular season games and all,” he added. “But our younger kids got some good experience this season, were forced out of their comfort zones some, and that has to help us in the future.”

Haflich said seniors Jared Webley, Jeriko Smith-Roach and Josh Baldwin played their final football games as Red Devils in Harlowton and that all three will be missed.