GREAT FALLS — In a championship day that will be talked about for years to come, Kalispell Glacier delivered back-to-back miracles to win the Class AA state softball title — rallying to beat Billings Senior 13-12 with a six-run seventh inning in the first championship game, then outlasting the Broncs 17-15 in extra innings in what may go down as one of the greatest games in Montana High School Association softball history in the second.
“I think it’s pretty crazy,” sophomore Olivia Warriner said after the win. “We definitely just earned it. We played, what, seven games? Two extra innings? We just really earned it. We kept fighting through every inning and pushed through.”
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The Wolfpack entered Saturday needing two wins to dethrone the undefeated Broncs who had scored 43 runs in three wins. In Game 1, Glacier looked finished — trailing 12-7 entering the bottom of the seventh — before erupting for six runs in a rally capped by Warriner’s walk-off single. She finished 3-for-5 with four RBIs in that game alone.
Kalispell Glacier lost its first game of the tournament, 13-4 against Billings West on Thursday. The Wolfpack needed another walk-off single from Warriner in the third-place game to beat those same West Bears on Saturday morning to even reach the final.
“Even though we lost our first game, we were like, ‘We’re going to keep pushing back every pitch. We’re going to throw our best pitch every time, take our best swing at it,'" Warriner said. "And I think that’s what just kept bringing us through every single time.”
The emotional comeback set the stage for a dramatic "if necessary" title game — one that felt more like a heavyweight slugfest at times than a softball game.
In the second game, Glacier and Senior traded leads five times, combining for 32 runs and 33 hits. Glacier struck last in the eighth, pushing across two runs to take a 17-15 lead, then closed the door with one final stand.
Warriner once again delivered, going 4-for-5 with two home runs, seven RBIs and four runs scored. Aubree Gerber added a homer of her own, while Rankosky went 2-for-5 and drove in two. Gibbons pitched gritty innings and came up with clutch outs in relief.
“When I first went in there, I was a little bit nervous,” Gibbons said. “But I just said a little prayer, calmed down and took it pitch by pitch.”
For Billings Senior, Octavia Meyer led the charge with three home runs and seven RBIs across the two games. Madi Ban and Portia Bryant added three hits each in the finale, and Payton Tryan drove in three as the Broncs matched Glacier’s offensive firepower inning after inning.
According to Glacier head coach Abby Snipes, the team had joked in the morning that they needed to make 63 outs to win a title.
“It took a couple more than that in the long run,” Snipes said with a laugh. “But we just approached every at-bat, every inning, one out at a time. We went as a pack, and we won as a pack.”
The championship marks Glacier’s second title in three years and third straight finals appearance. Warriner is only a sophomore, and there's no reason to think Glacier can't make it four straight appearances in 2026.
“I hope everyone in their life has a chance to have an opportunity like this,” Snipes said. “To really just get to be behind something they believe in, to get to step up and to really gut it out like that.”
