BUTTE – Butte High quarterback Colton Shea looks to live up to the Bulldogs playmakers before him and will get his first chance Friday night when Billings West comes to town.
“I’m just really excited, we’re playing a really good team in Billings West,” said Shea, who coached Butte’s JV team last season. “They’re going to be a good challenge for us to get into conference play. There were a lot of really good quarterbacks here and I just want to see what they did.”
Shea replaces Butte quarterbacks Bo Demarais, Jace Stenson, Blake Drakos and Tommy Mellott. And Butte head coach Arie Gray, who is entering his 17th season as coach of the Bulldogs, is fully convinced that he will be a worthy successor.
“Colton did a great job for us in the offseason, he did a really good job with our sub-varsity team and then really took the reins in the spring and summer,” Gray said. “He’s just a good leader, a hard-working young man. So we’re excited to see what Colton can bring to the table this year.”
The Bulldogs open their season against West one year after Butte began its 2023 season with a wild comeback win over the Golden Bears. The Bulldogs overcame six turnovers and erased a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to earn an improbable 21-17 victory at Daylis Stadium.
Butte pulled off an even more surprising comeback in its conference opener of Week 3 at home against Kalispell Glacier, overcoming a 21-0 deficit in the fourth quarter to surprise the eventual Class AA runner-up.
Those big wins put Butte on a path that put the Bulldogs on track to secure first place in the Western AA. But after losing their final two games of the regular season, Butte secured fourth place, defeated Billings Senior at home in the first round of the playoffs, then fell to Bozeman in the quarterfinals.
The Bulldogs have had plenty of time to think about the end of 2023 and are now entering this season with increased urgency.
“I think we just have to have a good game plan, just keep playing physical and keep the energy up,” said senior Torre Tempel, who was exclusively a defensive back last season but will also play receiver this year. “We have to carry what we’ve brought to practice into the game. And I think that will help us a lot.”
The Bulldogs and Golden Bears kick off at 6 p.m. Friday at Naranche Stadium.
