EBS STAFF
The Lone Peak High School football team finished 5-3 this fall, missing the Montana eight-player playoffs due to their unfavorable point differential.
After a thrilling homecoming victory on Oct. 4 and a bye week, the Big Horns traveled four hours to Lodge Grass High School on Thursday, Oct. 17, and earned a 64-12 victory. The Big Horns prepared to visit the Flint Creek Co-Op (Drummond and Philipsburg) for their final regular season game on Oct. 25.
Head coach Dustin Shipman told EBS in an email that both Lodge Grass and Flint Creek were “must wins” if the Big Horns were to make the playoffs. Unfortunately, the Big Horns fell to the Titans in their final game, 58-6.
“We were close at the end of the first quarter with Flint Creek, but they got away from us,” Shipman wrote. “They are a top-10 team in the state in eight-man and we needed to play a physical game. We just were not able to slow down their run game.”
The Big Horns missed the playoffs for the first time in three seasons—before 2022, their last playoff appearance was 2017. However, with a 5-3 finish in a new district facing some new teams, Shipman believes it was a successful year.
“We were playing better football at the end of the season than we were at the beginning, which is what we hope for every year,” Shipman wrote. “In all our games the kids played tough and never gave up.”
Shipman looks forward to getting back to work to prepare for 2025—the team is slated to gain some young talent from the burgeoning Ophir Middle School program.
