The loss one step short of the state championship game motivated Marcus Wehr for a full year. When the Billings Central defensive end and his teammates earned another shot at the Hamilton Broncs, this time in the state championship game in November, Wehr did not want it to slip away.
As a junior, Wehr and the Rams fell 35-28 in the semifinals of the Class A playoffs to Hamilton.
“That really stung me really hard,” Wehr said. “I just went in the weight room the next weekend and had it in my mind and I was like, ‘Next year we are going to win this thing.’”
On November 17, Wehr missed the annual rivalry game between Montana and Montana State in Missoula. He estimates it was the first Cat-Griz game “I had ever missed in my life that I can remember.” But Wehr could be forgiven for not being at Washington-Grizzly Stadium for Montana State’s epic 29-25 victory. He was in the midst of claiming his own state championship.
The Rams put the clamps down on Hamilton’s previously unstoppable offense on the way to a gritty 28-21 victory.