With two-and-a-half minutes to go, Lucas Canty put the Bengals in front, 2-1. 

“Josh (Valesquez) sent in a corner kick,” Canty recalled. “It deflected off a few people in the box and I was sitting there picking up trash. It just came to me. It was a perfect volley and I smashed it into the bottom-left corner.”

Helena breathed a collective sigh of relief. After coming up empty for most of the half, their work was finally paying dividends and the flood gates were open.

Less than a minute later, Ben Vince tacked on another goal to make it 3-1. Less than a minute after that, Jacob Demmons drilled home another to make it 4-1. 

“I was happy that we had the lead at halftime,” said Butte coach Cody Carpenter. “Us coming in with only 22 players for two teams was kind of tough from a subbing standpoint. That really hurt us in the second half.”

The girls game was never in doubt. Rachael Plaster notched three goals, Elsa Grebenc scored two goals, Avery Kraft had two goals, and Quinn Benedetti and Kea Normandy had one goal apiece. 

“We used our outside midfielders much better in this game than we did on Saturday,” said Bengals coach Mike Meloy. “I think the effect of doing that was to open up the field so that we can find feet as we move the ball up the field. It creates gaps that we can pass through and run through.”