Friday night live: A timeline from Week 1 of the high school football season

Welcome to "Friday night live," MTN Sports' continuous real-time tracker of various scores and updates from the high school football field in Montana.

Each Friday in the fall, we'll keep a running tab of what's happening on the gridiron, sharing the biggest scores and key updates from around the state as they become available. The most recent updates will be at the top, so refresh this page often.

Are you at a game tonight? You can help us by sharing scores, big plays, quarter-by-quarter updates or highlight videos via email (scores@montanasports.com) or X/Twitter (@montanasports), or with a Facebook message to Montana Sports.

Follow below, and be sure to keep track of our scoreboard for more updates:

10:55 p.m. | Manhattan, Three Forks among the big Class B winners

It was an exciting night in Class B. Click here for a look at how things shook out in Week 1. Thank you for following along!

10:49 p.m. | A light night of action in 6-Man

There weren't many games Friday across the 6-Man landscape, but click here to see a breakdown of what did happen.

10:41 p.m. | The 8-Man rundown

See what happened across the 8-Man landscape tonight by clicking here.

10:26 p.m. | Class A roundup

For scores and highlights from tonight's action in Class A, click here.

10:13 p.m. | Class AA roundup

Check out the scores and highlights from Class AA here.

Here's one look at a late-game highlight from the Great Falls High/Kalispell Flathead thriller:

9:52 | Piecing together highlights

Right now we're putting together our highlight packages for the 10 p.m. newscasts. Check back for more soon.

A couple injury notes from tonight so far that have stood out: Three Forks QB Kanon Reichman reportedly injured a shoulder during the Wolves' game against Florence, while Great Falls High's Steele Harris also suffered a shoulder injury early against Kalispell Flathead and didn't return.

9:36 p.m. | Defending champions roll call

Let's take a look at the Week 1 status of each defending state champion as it stands right now:

• Kalipsell Glacier lost 6-3 to Billings West
• Frenchtown won 38-0 over Bigfork
• Manhattan leads 23-0 over Anaconda in a third-quarter lightning delay
• Scobey won 40-0 over Poplar
• C-J-I opens its season Saturday with a title-game rematch against Grass Range-Winnett

9:24 p.m.| Glasgow erases deficit to beat Red Lodge

Red Lodge led 15-0, then 21-8 in its matchup with Glasgow, but the Scotties owned the second half to secure a 36-21 victory.

That's a nice comeback win — against a traditionally formidable opponent — for a team that fell just shy of an appearance in the Class B title game last season.

9:16 p.m. | 8-Man Drummond-Philipsburg starts strong

In our 8-Man game of the week, Drummond-Philipsburg rolled over Ennis 44-0 to begin the season. The Titans are again among the top teams in the 8-Man ranks, coming off a season in which they lost in the state title game to Scobey.

9 p.m. | Lightning, unsurprisingly, factoring in

As the East Helena-vs.-Miles City game was called off, in part, due to lightning, it also wreaked havoc elsewhere.

The CMR-at-Capital game finally got underway after three separate delays, while games between Manhattan and Anaconda, Three Forks and Florence, and Lockwood and Butte Central were also halted. And those are just the ones we're aware of at the moment.

8:54 p.m. | Some stats to chew on

Just got the statistics from Missoula Big Sky's 69-0 win at Billings Senior and Billings West's 6-3 OT victory at Kalispell Glacier. Two vastly different games, but let's dig into some numbers:

• Big Sky QB Eli Kasberg accounted for 5 touchdowns against Senior — 3 passing and 2 rushing. Mason Ramos caught all of Kasberg's TD passes. Elijah Jones had a pair of rushing scores for the Eagles.
• Senior accumulated just 79 yards of offense, and the Broncs lost two of their five fumbles. They went 0 for 7 on third-down plays
• The offensive numbers for West and Glacier were about as even as it gets: 176 total yards for the Bears and 163 for the Wolfpack (80 rushing for West, 88 for Glacier).
• West won despite being called for 10 penalties (for 99 yards) and punting eight times. But the Bears stole the only two defensive takeaways of the day, interceptions by Walker Olson and Caleb Durand.

8:34 | Goal-line stand lifts Billings West

Billings West got payback from last year's AA title-game loss to Kalispell Glacier with a 6-3 win in OT tonight in the Flathead Valley. Regulation ended in a 3-3 tie, and the Golden Bears kicked a short field goal on their first overtime possession. Then West's defense made a goal-line stop on Glacier's fourth-down play to preserve the victory.

8:25 p.m. | Laurel taking it to Glendive in coach's debut

While J.D. Ferris' first game as the new coach at East Helena never got off the ground (see below), C.J. Edgmond couldn't have asked for a better start in his Laurel coaching debut.

The Locomotives took a 40-6 lead into halftime over Glendive after Davin Graves and Luke Maack connected again.

8:12 p.m. | Missoula Big Sky with an emphatic Week 1 win

We have our first final score of the night — Missoula Big Sky 69, Billings Senior 0.

Elsewhere in AA, Great Falls High and Kalispell Flathead are knotted 21-21 late in the first half after a Rivers Herring touchdown for the Bison.

Of note in Class A, it was reported on social media that East Helena's home game against Miles City has been canceled in part due to lightning. Meanwhile, the Capital/CMR game in Helena has been twice delayed.

7:55 p.m. | Red Lodge, Jefferson, Manhattan pitching Class B shutouts so far

In Class B action, Red Lodge took a 15-0 advantage over Glasgow with 5:35 remaining in the first half, and Jefferson capitalized on a takeaway with a second TD run by MacAllister Mendenhall and a 14-0 advantage over Missoula Loyola in the second quarter. And Manhattan has a 23-0 lead over Anaconda after a scoring pass from Tyson Pavlik to Brayden Zikmund.

Oh, and the matchup in Helena between CMR and Helena Capital got as far as pregame introductions before it was halted again due to lightning. Could be a late finish in that one.

7:39 p.m. | We have scoring in Kalispell

We finally have points on the board in the AA title-game rematch between Glacier and West. A short field goal by Ty Sherrill gave the Wolfpack a 3-0 advantage with 1:42 remaining in the third. Earlier, a long kickoff return for a touchdown by the Golden Bears' Westdon Kelly was wiped out on a penalty.

Meanwhile, our Alec Bofinger noted earlier that Billings Central's Gunnar Larsen — the son of former Denver Bronco and Tampa Bay Buccaneer Spencer Larsen — had carried the ball three times for 178 yards and three touchdowns for the Rams, who at that time held a 20-0 advantage over Dillon.

7:26 p.m. | 2 early TDs for Gunnar Larsen, Kaden Thennis

Missoula Sentinel isn't wasting any time. The Spartans are up 14-0 over Belgrade on a pair of touchdown runs by Kaden Thennis.

Jefferson is opening its final season in Class B tonight at Missoula Loyola. The Panthers got started with a short touchdown run from Tyzer Zody to take a 6-0 advantage of the Rams midway through the first quarter.

For Billings Central, Gunnar Larsen continues to impress as this time he scores on a 45-yard sweep to the end zone. Rams are up 13-0 over Dillon. Larsen is showing off his talent before he heads to West Point.

7:15 p.m. | Scoring blitz

Great Falls is hosting Kalispell Flathead in their opener, and Steele Harris has given the Bison the early lead with his first touchdown of the season. And in Bozeman, Butte has taken a 3-0 lead over Bozeman High.

Billings Central scored on its first offensive play of the season, a 78-yard run by Gunnar Larsen and the Rams are up 7-0 over Dillon in their Class A matchup at Rocky Mountain College.

After an early takeaway, Frenchtown has grabbed a 7-0 lead over Bigfork as Jake Forthofer finds the end zone for the defending state champions.

7:01 p.m. | The rest of the state gets underway

While we had a few early 6 p.m. kickoffs, a swath of games are now getting started. So stay tuned for continued updates.

Laurel is up 7-0 early over Glendive as Davin Graves found Luke Maack for an opening touchdown. The game marks C.J. Edgmond's first game as the Locomotives' head coach.

In Kalispell, the AA showdown between Billings West and Kalispell Glacier is still scoreless at halftime.

6:50 p.m. | Delayed in Helena

Lightning delays are normal at this time of year, and that's exactly what we've got in Helena as Capital is set to host CMR. They hope to get things kicked off in that game by 7:30.

Meanwhile, Missoula Big Sky has since jumped up by a score of 28-0 over Billings Senior. The Eagles, who could be a serious contender, are off to the races in 2026.

6:35 p.m. | Championship rematch in AA

Billings West is at Kalispell Glacier tonight for a rematch of their 2025 Class AA state title game, which the Wolfpack won. A couple interesting coaching notes: It's the first game of the final season for West coach Rob Stanton, while Glacier coach Grady Bennett must sit out this game (and next week's) due to a suspension for a recruiting violation.

The game is a scoreless tie after the first quarter.

6:26 p.m. | Missed opportunity

In Class B, Fairfield took an early 7-0 lead over Eureka and was knocking on the door at the goal line for a two-score lead, but the Eagles fumbled and it was recovered by Eureka in front of its own end zone.

Meanwhile in Billings, an Eli Kasberg TD throw had Missoula Big Sky up 21-0 over Billings Senior with less than 6:00 left in the opening quarter.

6:11 p.m. | Big Sky strikes early

Missoula Big Sky is already up 14-0 on Billings Senior at the new Sam McDonald Stadium at Daylis. The Eagles started the season about as well as you can, returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown.

6 p.m. | Recapping Thursday's games

Before we get going on tonight's games, let's take a quick look back at Thursday night, which featured the first opening games of the season. There were two games in Class AA, and one each in Class A and the 8-Man ranks.

Here's a recap of those final scores:

Class AA

Bozeman 56, Missoula Hellgate 14

Helena 41, Billings Skyview 14

Class A

Columbia Falls 34, Lewistown 26

8-Man

Centerville 52, Rocky Boy 8

This photo was sent to us from Centerville. Thanks for sharing!

Contributed

You can check out Thursday's highlights roundup here.