Columbia Falls and Whitefish punched tickets to the Class A boys state soccer championship game on Saturday afternoon. The championship match will be a bout between the North's top two teams.
Columbia Falls 2, Billings Central 1
The Columbia Falls boys soccer team pulled off another upset in the semifinal round of the State A soccer playoffs.
Last Saturday, the Wildcats took down the No.1 seed from the South, the Frenchtown Broncs, 2-1. In the semifinal round, Columbia Falls prevailed once again with a 2-1 win over the No. 1 seed from the East, the Billings Central Rams.
The Rams scored early on a goal from Sam Dull and took a 1-0 lead into the half, but Columbia Falls rallied just like it did last week.
Finley Sundberg, who was the hero from the quarterfinal game, scored with 15 minutes left to knot it up at 1-1.
With 11 minutes remaining, freshman Kai Golan found the back of the net to give the Wildcats a 2-1 advantage.
Columbia Falls' defense held tight down the stretch to pull off the upset and move on to the State A championship game.
It's the Wildcats' first appearance in the Class A title game since 2005 when they beat Billings Central 2-1 in overtime.
Whitefish 6, Corvallis 0
The Whitefish boys handled business on Saturday afternoon to move onto their fourth straight Class A title game appearance.
The Whitefish Bulldogs out-shot the Corvallis Blue Devils 12-6 on Saturday but made much more of their opportunities, scoring six goals en route to 6-0 a semifinal win.
The Bulldogs scored three goals in the first half from James Thompson, Aaron Dicks and Collin Lyman in the 18th, 33rd and 35th minutes, respectively.
In the second half, Whitefish tacked on three more goals from Gabe Menicke, Marvin Kimera, and Lyman.
Whitefish (1N) will host Columbia Falls (2N) in the title game next week.
