Montana
Junior Bergen does it again as Montana survives playoff scare from Tennessee State
MISSOULA — Junior Bergen put on another virtuoso performance Saturday night and Montana is moving on in the FCS playoffs.
Bergen returned two punts for touchdowns — the FCS record-tying seventh and eighth of his career — and the Grizzlies eluded Eddie George-coached Tennessee State 41-27 in a first-round game at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.
UM, the No. 14 seed for the playoffs, will now hit the road for a second-round game against No. 3 seed South Dakota State next week.
Three turnovers on offense helped keep Tennessee State in the game, but Bergen returned punts for 52 and 54 yards to the end zone. The first helped give the Grizzlies a 27-6 lead in the third quarter. The second made the score 34-20 in the fourth.
PHOTOS: 14TH-SEEDED MONTANA HOSTS TENNESSEE STATE IN FCS PLAYOFFS
Bergen has now returned five punts for touchdowns in the playoffs alone, adding to those he had against SE Missouri in 2022, and versus Furman and North Dakota State last year.
Montana’s offense struggled to find consistency and turned the ball over three times to a Tennessee State defense that is coordinated by former Griz linebacker Brandon Fisher.
James Dobson / For MTN Sports
Thankfully for the Grizzlies, special teams played a huge role.
After going three-and-out to start the game, Montana got on the board on its second possession when Ty Morrison booted a 39-yard field goal. Tennessee State put together a drive of its own, though, and knotted the score at 3-3 with a 37-yard kick by James Lowery in the final seconds of the first quarter.
On Montana’s first drive of the second quarter, freshman running back Malae Fonoti had 36 yards on the ground, but Morrison was wide right on a 39-yard field goal try and the Griz came up empty.
Later, an Eli Gillman run on fourth down moved the chains, and then he capped the possession with a 7-yard touchdown run to put the Grizzlies back in front 10-3 with 4:35 left before halftime.
The Griz got more breathing room as Morrison hit consecutive field goals, one from 31 yards and the other from 50 — his career long — to go into halftime ahead 16-3.
Early in the third quarter, Montana quarterback Logan Fife coughed up a fumble near midfield, but TSU couldn’t capitalize other than a 26-yard field goal by Lowery to make the score 16-6 with 6:44 on the clock.
The Griz got those points back later in the third as Morrison banged home his fourth field goal of the night, a 30-yarder.
After Bergen’s first punt return touchdown, Tennessee State benefitted from a 63-yard kickoff return by Craig Cunningham and got a 3-yard TD pass from Draylen Ellis to Karate Brenson with 1:02 left in the third to cut Montana’s advantage to 27-13.
Fife lost a fumble for the second time at the start of the fourth quarter, which eventually produced an 11-yard touchdown run by Ellis to make it 27-20.
Xavier Harris responded with a long kickoff return for the Grizzlies, and Keali’i Ah Yat relieved Fife at quarterback. Stevie Rocker Jr. took a shovel pass from Ah Yat to the 3.
But Gillman fumbled an exchange from Ah Yat on the next play and Tennessee State recovered. The Tigers went backwards, though, and Bergen then scooped up a bouncing punt on the far sideline and took it back 54 yards for his second TD of the night.
The Grizzlies needed it, too, because the Tigers didn’t go away. Ellis hit Brenson with a touchdown pass for the second time, making the score 34-27 with 3:03 left.
On Montana’s next possession, Gillman refused to go down on the sideline, cut back against the defense and scored for a 59-yard touchdown run to extend the lead again.
The Grizzlies sealed the victory on a Trevin Gradney interception at the 2-yard line with 1:19 remaining.
Turning point: Bergen’s second punt return was a huge difference-maker because it came at a critical moment with Montana leading by just one score. It returned a sense of order to the game.
Bergen’s eight punt-return touchdowns tie the FCS record initially set by Leroy Vann, who played at Florida A&M from 2006-09.
Stat of the game: With his 7-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, Gillman achieved his first career 1,000-yard season. Gillman — last year’s Jerry Rice Award winner as the top freshman in the FCS — finished with 136 yards on 20 carries.
Grizzly game balls: RB Eli Gillman (Offense). It was an up-and-down offensive night for the Griz, but Gillman’s steady running, and his two touchdowns, were key.
LB Riley Wilson (Defense). Again, Wilson stood out on defense for the Grizzlies. The linebacker finished with seven tackles, 1.5 sacks and 3.5 tackles for loss as UM held the Tigers to minus-19 rushing yards.
PR Junior Bergen (Special teams). Who else? With another outstanding playoff performance, Bergen further cemented his legacy as the best return man in the history of the Griz program.
What’s next: With the win, the Grizzlies (9-4) drew a second-round matchup with two-time defending national champion South Dakota State (10-2) next Saturday at 12 p.m. Mountain time. It will be a rematch of last year’s title game in Frisco, Texas, which the Jackrabbits won 23-3.
It will be the fourth playoff meeting between Montana and SDSU since 2009. The Griz haven’t faced the Jackrabbits in Brookings, S.D., since Nov. 14, 1970, a 24-0 Montana victory.
Montana
Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for May 8, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 8, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from May 8 drawing
37-47-49-51-58, Mega Ball: 16
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from May 8 drawing
09-14-18-20, Bonus: 16
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 8 drawing
14-16-21-43-51, Bonus: 03
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
“It’s Life Alert or rent”: Montana trailer park tenants are on rent strike
Mobile home residents in Bozeman, Montana, say they’re being forced to choose between paying rent and paying medical costs.Courtesy of Jered McCafferty
35-year-old Benjamin Moore has lived in Mountain Meadows Mobile Home Park, outside Bozeman, Montana, since he was 17. This month, for the first time, he’s withholding his rent.
On May 1, Moore received a rent bill for $947, up 11 percent from the month before, and the second hike in nine months—the product of the park’s sale to an undisclosed buyer.
Moore hung a sign on his trailer that says “RENT STRIKE.” He and his neighbors in Mountain Meadows and nearby King Arthur Park, organized with the citywide group Bozeman Tenants United, are collectively withholding over $50,000 a month from their landlord.
Historically, trailer parks have been a relatively affordable housing option—a third of trailer park residents in America live below the poverty line. But on average, their cost of living has risen 45 percent over the past decade. By unionizing, the Bozeman trailer park tenants believe they might be able to fight the most recent rent hike—especially given the state of their housing.
For years, tenants say, the maintenance hasn’t been attended to: tree limbs hang perilously over trailers, and water shutoffs are a regular occurrence. “I cannot recall a time in the past 20 years where we had three straight months of water and power working all day, every day,” Moore said.
Shauna Thompson, another resident, calls the water “atrocious…like a Milky Way, like you’re drinking skim milk. It’s very nasty and turned off all the time, without any notice.” And tenants allege that they’ve experienced retribution for maintenance requests, punitive eviction attempts, and unsafe conditions.
“It’s really hard on people here,” Moore said. Some residents are “already paying their entire Social Security check for rent. It’s a very poor neighborhood. We’ve got old folks. We’ve got young families. We’ve got working-class people who can’t afford anything else.”
For the past four decades, a group called Oakland Properties has owned both trailer parks. When they learned about the sale, tenants were scared that their parks would be bulldozed, or that their rent would be increased even further, forcing them to move.
The tenants attempted to buy the parks themselves, but were decisively outbid. The winning bidder demanded an NDA. The transaction should be finalized next month, park owner Gary Oakland said, but residents still don’t know who’s going to own the land they live on.
This month’s rent hike, Oakland acknowledged, was “part and parcel” of the sale. But for tenants, it’s a catastrophe. On top of the $947 lot rent—more than double the national average—many residents also pay off home loans on their trailers, as well as insurance and utilities costs.
Oakland calls claims of broken utilities “nonsense”: “If it was such a bad place to live, why would the homes be selling for such high dollars?” he said. The rent strike, Oakland points out, is “just a group of people not paying their rent.”
Some people are rationing their medication to make ends meet, Moore said. “There’s one person who canceled Life Alert. It’s either Life Alert or rent, and if you don’t pay rent, they evict you and throw you in the streets.”
Tenant organizers across the nation have found a foothold in recent years organizing against individual landlords, and Bozeman’s tenant union, situated in one of the fastest-growing communities in the state, is no exception. Tenant unions from Los Angeles to Kansas City to New York have organized to win rent freezes, maintenance, and security in their homes.
Mobile home parks—increasingly private-equity-owned and uniquely at-risk in the face of climate disasters—are organizing, too: a group of trailer park residents in Columbia, Missouri, unionized in February. In Montana, as Rebecca Burns recently wrote for In These Times, mobile homes were already once a site of tenant organizing: buoyed by the state’s miners unions, the first Bozeman-area mobile home tenants’ union won an agreement with their landlord in 1978.
Oakland says park residents “have been terrorized by the union,” and plans to evict the strikers. The strikers say they’ve retained a lawyer and will fight to stay in their homes.
“I wish none of this was happening,” Moore said. “Your utilities should work. Your place should be safe. You should be able to get in and out of it. These are the absolute basics, and they just haven’t kept them up. And if you call them on it, they threaten you.”
Montana
Montana’s fastest man who started as a walk on
MISSOULA, Mt. — Karsen Beitz arrived at Montana with no scholarship offers, one remaining walk-on spot and no guarantee that his track career would last.
Now, the former Sentinel High School standout is one of the fastest athletes in Montana history.
Beitz, a Missoula native and junior sprinter for the Grizzlies, has turned an unlikely college opportunity into a record-setting career. He owns Montana’s 100-meter and 200-meter program records and enters next week’s Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships as one of the top sprinters in the league.
Coming out of high school, Beitz was a football and track athlete without a Division I offer.
“I was upset about it,” Beitz said. “But at the same time, I was fine with just going to college and living a normal college life.”
That changed after conversations between Sentinel coach Dylan Reynolds and Montana coach Doug Fraley.
“You may not think he’s a D-I prospect based on his times,” Reynolds told Fraley, “but I’m just telling you, if he gets in the right program, he’s going to be a D-I runner.”
Fraley had one walk-on spot left on his roster. He brought Beitz into his office, talked with him and decided to take a chance.
“I liked him. We had a good conversation, so I decided to give him the last walk-on spot,” Fraley said. “I’m sure glad I did.”
Beitz became a Division I athlete in his hometown, but his first goal was modest. He wanted to prove he belonged and earn a scholarship.
He did that quickly.
As a freshman, Beitz placed at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships and helped Montana’s 4×100-meter relay reach the podium with a school-record performance.
“There was no doubt he earned that scholarship,” Fraley said.
Beitz continued to climb in 2025. He placed second in the 200 meters at the Big Sky indoor meet, but a hamstring injury kept him out of the outdoor championships.
“It sucked to deal with,” Beitz said. “But I’m young and still had two years left, so I shifted my mindset to how I could come out these next two years.”
He has not looked back.
Beitz won the 200 meters at the 2026 Big Sky indoor championships, the first individual conference title of his track career. His time of 21.09 seconds edged Idaho State’s Alex Conner by one-hundredth of a second.
“I think the best part about it was seeing how happy Doug was,” Beitz said. “He was jumping up and down, gave me a big hug. After last year, I knew what I was capable of, so to go out there and do it was amazing.”
Then came the outdoor season.
In April, Beitz broke Montana’s 58-year-old 200-meter record, running 20.55 seconds at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate in Long Beach, California. The previous record had stood since 1968.
Two weeks later, he added the school’s wind-legal 100-meter record, running 10.25 seconds at the Bengal Invitational in Pocatello, Idaho. Which broke a 44-year-old program record and gave Beitz both sprint marks.
“He’s a really competitive guy, and he wants to be the best in the Big Sky,” Fraley said.
The records have not left Beitz satisfied. They have made him hungrier.
“You have all these goals and numbers in your mind,” Beitz said. “Then once you hit those numbers, you’re not satisfied. There’s just more numbers to chase.”
The next chase begins at the Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championships, scheduled for May 13-16 in Portland, Oregon.
After college, Beitz hopes to follow his mother’s footsteps and become a pharmacist. Maybe even the world’s fastest pharmacist.
“If I’m running around the hospital talking to doctors,” Beitz said, “I’ll do it pretty fast.”
From a walk-on few people noticed to a conference champion and school-record holder, Beitz has become Montana’s fastest man — and he is not done running.
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