Boys advance to Class A semifinals

The Wildcat boys soccer team has made it to the State A semifinals for the first time in five years after a 2-1 upset over higher-seeded Frenchtown on Saturday.

The playoff game was set to be unnervingly familiar as this was the third time in the last four years the Cats have battled the Broncs on the Frenchtown field during the quarterfinals, the first two of which resulted in season-ending losses for the Cats. This year however, Columbia Falls was able to break the streak.

Senior team captain Jason Albin scored the first goal around 10 minutes into the game. Frenchtown tied it 1-1 with a goal midway through the first half where it stayed through halftime until nearly all the way through the second half when Finley Sundberg, assisted by Albin, made a shot with four minutes left in the match.

“[Sundberg] had the confidence of a college-level striker, and he buried it when we needed him to,” said head coach O’Brien Byrd of Sundberg’s game-winning performance. “He came up huge.”

The victory was made more impressive given the Cats were generally younger in age, smaller in stature and definitely less experienced in winning playoffs.

“It’s a real testament to the character of these boys, the bravery, the courage that would lead them to stand up and fight, regardless of all these excuses around us,” said Byrd.

Columbia Falls boys and girls soccer will co-host the Class A semifinals games on Saturday, with the boys playing the first-seeded eastern conference team Billings Central at 11 a.m. on Flip Darling Memorial Field.