Briar Napier
Billings
Ex-sports reporter turned marketing pro/sports watcher. #MizzouMade, Midwestern-molded mountain man. Meat smoker and country music fan. Sometimes triathlete.
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Articles by Briar Napier
Tenley Leffler breaks records in goal for MSUB
New subscriber benefit! Copied to clipboard Out of gifts for the month Unfortunately you've used all of your gifts this month. Your counter will reset on the first day of next month. Share this article paywall-free Email Copy Link Prefer us on Google Facebook Twitter Bluesky WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save By: Briar Napier, feature sports writer BILLINGS, Mont. – Jack knew Tenley Leffler was going to be up to the challenge of being a starting college goalkeeper as a true freshman.
Five Bold Predictions That Could Define The Premiership Title Race
England’s top-flight rugby competition is red-hot, and with a title race that could see some dramatic shifts over the next few months, something has to give. The 10-team league is always one of the most unpredictable and helter-skelter club rugby competitions in the world, and that has remained true through eight rounds of play and the second half of the season on the horizon.
Five Bold Predictions That Could Shape The URC Title Race In 2026
The new year is upon us, and the 2025-26 United Rugby Championship campaign is in the thick of competition. The conclusion of the upcoming New Years’ weekend matches will mark the halfway point in the season, with all teams in the league gunning for playoff spots, premier European placements and/or bragging rights in regional shield competitions.
Five Bold Predictions That Will Shape The Second Half Of The Top 14 Season
The end of the calendar year traditionally marks the halfway point in the French rugby season, where all teams have gotten a match against one another and most are in the thick of the continental slate. At the 50% mark, there are two far and away title favorites, a mid-table battle that’s likely to prove to be tantalizing as the rounds wind down, and a two-team relegation battle that, if form holds, could very well stretch into the final day.
Autumn Nations Series: Winners And Losers From November Tests
This past month was the final chance for the best teams in international rugby to make forward strides before the year comes to a close. And in the last test matches before the international calendar changes wildly in 2026, we learned a lot about the state of world rugby.
Autumn Nations Series: Winner And Losers From November Tests
This past month was the final chance for the best teams in international rugby to make forward strides before the year came to a close. And in the last test matches before the international calendar changes wildly in 2026, we learned a lot about the state of world rugby.
Top 14 Round 10 Returns As Clubs Battle Absences In High Stakes Weekend
The Top 14 is back in action this weekend for Round 10, but the fixtures scheduled for France’s top-flight rugby competition won’t come without some added wrinkles. The international break is still going on, and the end-of-year internationals will continue on into this weekend, with numerous top-tier nations due to clash worldwide.
Top 14 Round 8 Preview: Searing Pau Aims To Keep Top-of-Table Form Going
There’s a new top dog in the Top 14, and it’s a bit of an unexpected name. That being said, current solo league leader Pau has completely earned the right to be French rugby’s leader entering Round 8.
Top 14 Round 6 Preview: Bayonne An Unlikely Table-Topper; A Rematch Looms
A derby day and a rematch of last year’s final are on the docket this weekend in the Top 14 calendar. What more could you ask for? Subscribe To FloRugby To Watch PREM Rugby 100 Best Rugby Players In The World: Here's The Full List United Rugby Championship Schedule: Here's Every URC Fixture PREM Rugby Lives Here: Gallagher Premiership To Stream On FloRugby Round 6 in the Top 14 will be bookended by two fixtures with major storylines.
Top 14 Round Three Preview: Can Anyone Break Free From The Unbeaten Pack?
What have we learned through two weeks of the 2025-26 Top 14 season? Well, in the grand scheme of things, we’ve learned that there’s still plenty of rugby left to be played. Five clubs in French rugby’s top division have won both matches to start their domestic campaigns, meaning that there isn’t much wiggle room at the top and that opportunities to break out and lead the pack will be few and far between.
Top 14 Round 2 Preview: Lyon Tops The Ladder This Week
Here's the run down for matches in the Top 14 Round 2 starting on Sept. 13. Sep 12, 2025 by Briar Napier Already a subscriber? The opening round of the Top 14 season, as it often does, promised big-time action and excitement and delivered on just that. The first seven matches of the 2025-26 campaign in the French domestic top flight were a roaring success, and one of the top club rugby leagues in the world got off to a flyer as another push for the Brennus Shield began.
Toulouse Starts Four-Peat Push As French Rugby Kicks Off | Top 14 Round 1
Summer is wrapping up, the training grounds are in top order and the 127th season of France’s top club rugby competition is about to get underway. Top 14 play gets going this weekend with a full slate of games – and enticing storylines for each. The hunts for silverware, European Rugby Champions Cup/Challenge Cup qualification and more, officially starts now, and for those that are in contention, a fast start will be crucial to their journey.
List of Division II And Division III Football Alumni To Make 53-Man Rosters
The preseason is over, and the final tweaks are being done to NFL rosters ahead of the start of the 2025 season, now less than a week away. And for those who just earned elusive spots on an NFL team’s 53-man roster, dreams have officially been realized.
Five Things to Know About Washington St. Louis Women's Soccer
St. Louis is one of America’s greatest soccer hubs, and that stretches all the way down to its college programs. Washington University in St. Louis’s women’s soccer team has long been a force in NCAA Division III, making five national championship games and winning two titles with a decorated history of iconic moments, incredible players — and winning.
Super Rugby Pacific Superlatives: Award Winners Following The 2025 Season
After a pulsating regular season, thrilling finals and one last match to decide it all last weekend, it’s officially curtains on the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season. There’s no need to feel sad, however; it was a brilliant year for Oceania’s top club rugby competition, which saw passionate crowds and support for all 11 of its teams as we were all left with a season to remember.
Crusaders vs. Chiefs: Super Rugby Pacific 2025 Final Showdown Preview
The Super Rugby Pacific final is here, and once and for all, we’ll crown ourselves a champion this weekend. The competition’s 11 teams each began the 2025 campaign in mid-February with high hopes, but only two are left standing in mid-June to duke it out for one of the grandest prizes in world rugby.
Super Rugby Pacific: What To Watch For In Each Semifinal Round Match
Already a subscriber? The final four teams officially are set. The Blues, Crusaders and Brumbies won their qualifying finals matches last weekend to seal their spots in the Super Rugby Pacific semifinal rounds, while the top-seeded Chiefs got past a loss from the Blues to earn the right to move on as the top-seeded loser left standing.
Super Rugby Pacific Playoff Race Heats Up In Penultimate 2025 Round
Scores will be settled, fates will be decided and tensions will rise during the penultimate round of the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific regular season this weekend. Of the 11 teams in this year’s competition, two are eliminated from finals contention and three have clinched spots in the top six. That means that six teams are left standing to compete for three remaining playoff places, and if things weren’t crazy across the league already, they’re really about to get wild now.
Super Rugby Playoff Push Heats Up With Five Rounds Left In Regular Season
As the calendar shifts to May, the Super Rugby Pacific slate has now officially reached the most important part of the regular season. It’s because by this time next month, we’ll know the six teams destined to make the playoffs and contest for the coveted 2025 Super Rugby Pacific title. Subscribe To FloRugby To Watch Champions Cup In 2024-25 Who's The Best Rugby Team In The World?
Super Rugby Pacific: One Big Thing To Watch For In Every Round 5 Match
It’s time for the Kids Round in the Super Rugby Pacific season, where family-friendly amenities and entertainment is the name of the game across the competition’s landscape this weekend. But if you think for a second that means that the animosity will be dying down, think again.
No. 5 Plenty Coups girls, star Brynecia Hugs having 'times of their lives' in historic unbeaten year
Few players know what it’s like to be in Brynecia Hugs’ position. Shiloh McCormick is probably one of them. Years before Hugs, a junior guard for the unbeaten Plenty Coups girls basketball team, was lighting up the nets on a nightly basis, McCormick was doing the same in Indian Country as one of the most prolific scorers the state has ever seen.
Lodge Grass' Dee Pretty On Top elected as MHSA's first American Indian board member
BILLINGS — Lodge Grass activities director Dee Pretty On Top was elected as the Montana High School Association's first American Indian executive board representative Monday at the organization's annual meeting inside the Billings Hotel and Convention Center.
Super Rugby Pacific: One Big Thing To Watch For In Every Round 4 Match
Ardie Savea will be facing his old club for the first time, the league leaders will try to pull off the stiff challenge of winning in Fiji, and two of the Super Rugby Pacific’s early surprises will be duking it out in a classic east coast vs. west coast derby. All in a week’s work for one of the best club rugby leagues in the world.
Eastern A Divisional: Lockwood boys mark first state trip with title; Billings Central girls stay perfect Original
BILLINGS — The road to the Class A state tournament had just one more stop left this weekend before it reached its destination. The Eastern A Divisional basketball tournaments wrapped up Saturday night at First Interstate Arena at MetraPark, with the girls bracket concluding first with Billings Central's championship win over Havre. The Rams' hopes for a divisional title double were spoiled in the boys nightcap, however, as Lockwood beat Central to capture its first-ever Eastern A championship.
No. 5 Plenty Coups girls, star Brynecia Hugs having 'times of their lives' in historic unbeaten year Original
LAUREL — Few players know what it's like to be in Brynecia Hugs' position. Shiloh McCormick is probably one of them. Years before Hugs, a junior guard for the unbeaten Plenty Coups girls basketball team, was lighting up the nets on a nightly basis, McCormick was doing the same in Indian Country as one of the most prolific scorers the state has ever seen.
Devils with a cause: No. 4 Glendive boys have size, can score and have big Class A potential
BILLINGS — Take the Glendive boys basketball team's 2023-24 season as a lesson in not taking a record at face value. The Red Devils finished 11-14 overall last season — at one point late in the regular season being 7-11 — but six of those losses came by six points or less. Loop in three more games that went into overtime (all Glendive wins), and it's abundantly clear that their record could've looked a lot different had things gone a certain way in many of their games.
Devils with a cause: No. 4 Glendive boys have size, can score and have big Class A potential
BILLINGS — Take the Glendive boys basketball team's 2023-24 season as a lesson in not taking a record at face value. The Red Devils finished 11-14 overall last season — at one point late in the regular season being 7-11 — but six of those losses came by six points or less. Loop in three more games that went into overtime (all Glendive wins), and it's abundantly clear that their record could've looked a lot different had things gone a certain way in many of their games.
From not 'a ton of offers' to 1,000 points, Scobey's Gracee Lekvold the rock of Rocky women's hoops Original
BILLINGS — Wes Keller didn't have much of an idea of how Gracee Lekvold's career trajectory was going to go when he got the Scobey native to sign as part of the Rocky Mountain College women's basketball team's 2021 recruiting class. What the Battlin' Bears' coach did see when he was scouting her, however, were plenty of intangibles that he liked, most notably some northeast Montana fortitude. "Gracee didn't have a ton of offers coming out of high school and we got her," Keller said.
Frontier Basketball Roundup: Tech men, Rocky women officially nab top tourney seeds Original
BILLINGS — The regular season has concluded and the Frontier Conference Tournament brackets are set in stone. The Montana Tech men's basketball team and the Rocky Mountain College women's basketball team each left no doubt Saturday night by winning their respective games to seal outright Frontier regular-season titles, with both the Orediggers and Battlin' Bears set to be the No. 1 seeds in their respective brackets at the Frontier tourney from March 2-4 at Four Seasons Arena in Great Falls.
All grown up, unbeaten No. 2 Melstone girls now ready for own crack at Class C gold Original
BILLINGS — The high aspirations for the current core running the show for the Melstone girls basketball team have been apparent for awhile now. Two years ago at the same Lockwood High School gym they played at Saturday night, the Broncs stomped through the District 5C Tournament the season after losing current Montana women's basketball player and 2,000-point scorer Draya Wacker with a roster of mainly freshmen and eighth-graders, eventually finishing 22-2 overall.
Zynan Zilkoski's buzzer-beater leads Billings Senior boys to upset over No. 1 Billings Skyview
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Bracket-busting Broncs? Buzzer-beater bolsters Billings Senior boys over No. 1 Billings Skyview Original
BILLINGS — While crosstown adversaries Billings West and Billings Skyview have each sat atop the 406 MT Sports Class AA boys basketball rankings at different points in the season, the Billings Senior boys basketball team has preferred to lurk in the shadows. The Falcons and the Golden Bears have each been mainstays of the Class AA top five for much of the 2024-25 campaign, being ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in the final poll of the season released Tuesday.
With dad, Damon coaching him on bench, Lodge Grass' TJ Gros Ventre building his own legacy Original
WORDEN — The Gros Ventre name is royalty in the annals of the Lodge Grass boys basketball team's history. The newest member of the family who's currently starring for the Indians, TJ Gros Ventre, knows how much weight that surname carries. For the uninitiated, TJ's older brother, Damon, is one of Montana boys basketball's all-time greats.
Photos: St. Labre vs. Lodge Grass boys basketball at District 3B Tournament
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T.J. Nelson
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From the mat to the court, Baker's girls sports teams winning state trophies one after another Original
BAKER — Ironically, one of Montana's current best small-school hotspots for girls sports is off the beaten path and isolated. Baker, in deep southeastern Montana and located less than 13 miles from the North Dakota border, isn't easy to get to. But when athletes from multiple Spartan girls sports have branched out of Fallon County recently to try and win some state tournament accolades, they've usually came back with something in their possession.
State Wrestling Notebook: Dillon's Nelson retires after national title-winning career Original
BILLINGS — T.J. Nelson is a national championship-winning college wrestling coach and a NAIA Hall of Famer. But he's also recently become a grandfather. "One 10 months and one four weeks old," Nelson said of the ages of his grandchildren. Seeing those two grow up, Nelson said, is a big reason why the longtime Dillon and former Montana Western wrestling coach has decided to step away from the sport.
High school girls basketball rankings: Five unbeatens remain as postseason begins
BILLINGS — One last time before postseason play hits, the 406 MT Sports high school girls basketball rankings have returned. For the first time all season, there isn't a debuting school in any of the four class polls as each state tournament's trophy contenders are now officially set. The number of unbeaten teams statewide has now also shrunk down to five, with one left in Class A and four left in what should be a wide-open title race in Class C.
2025 Montana Class A boys state wrestling champions, title win reactions
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2025 Montana Class A boys state wrestling champions, title win reactions
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2025 Montana Class A boys state wrestling champions, title win reactions
Skip to main contentSkip to main content You have permission to edit this video. We are currently undergoing maintenance on some services, which may temporarily affect access to subscription accounts and the E-edition. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issues. 2025 Montana Class A boys state wrestling champions, title win reactions You don't have any notifications. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.
2025 Montana Class A boys state wrestling champions, title win reactions
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Laurel places 13 to go back-to-back Original
BILLINGS — As Laurel's Holden Hoiness won the Class A state championship at 165 pounds Saturday night, his wrestling coach, Ted Hill, was experiencing a bit of deja vu. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much how the entirety of the Locomotives' time this weekend at the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament at First Interstate Arena at MetraPark seemed.
Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament
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Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament
Skip to main contentSkip to main content You have permission to edit this video. We are currently undergoing maintenance on some services, which may temporarily affect access to subscription accounts and the E-edition. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issues. Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament You don't have any notifications. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.
Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament
Skip to main contentSkip to main content You have permission to edit this video. We are currently undergoing maintenance on some services, which may temporarily affect access to subscription accounts and the E-edition. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issues. Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament Video Player is loading. Current Time 0:00 Duration 1:15 Remaining Time -1:15 Beginning of dialog window.
Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament
Skip to main contentSkip to main content You have permission to edit this video. We are currently undergoing maintenance on some services, which may temporarily affect access to subscription accounts and the E-edition. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issues. Highlights from Friday in the 2025 MHSA Class A state wrestling tournament Video Player is loading. Current Time 0:00 Duration 1:15 Remaining Time -1:15 Beginning of dialog window.
State A Wrestling: Laurel hoping blood-round 'vampires' help fend off hard-charging Sidney Original
BILLINGS — Laurel smells blood in the water. Or, perhaps, on the wrestling mats. The Locomotives' boys wrestling team took a big step forward toward potential back-to-back Class A state championships Friday night in the second day of the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament at First Interstate Arena at MetraPark, sending four wrestlers to state championship finals (scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday) and turning a tight team race into a sizable Laurel lead going into the final day at the Metra.
Eureka's Wes Banks wrestles Thursday at the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament
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Eureka's Wes Banks wrestles Thursday at the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament
Skip to main contentSkip to main content You have permission to edit this video. We are currently undergoing maintenance on some services, which may temporarily affect access to subscription accounts and the E-edition. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issues. Eureka's Wes Banks wrestles Thursday at the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament You don't have any notifications. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device.
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