Football season for the Helena Exchange Club Ravens has come to an end, and while they did not walk away holding the division championship title, these Jefferson County 5th graders enjoyed a perfect regular season record in the first year they put on shoulder pads.
The Ravens are an 11-man football team, part of the Helena Small Fry league, comprised of 5th graders from Boulder, Clancy and Montana City schools. For most players in the league, the 5th grade season is their first experience of its kind. As head coach Joey Taylor shares, “some of these kids have played flag before, but nothing quite like this — they’re brand new, and we spent some time early on trying out new things and finding where each player fit and worked together. Even this young, everybody has a skill set somewhere, and we want to find it.”
The Small Fry Football Association of Helena is a non-profit league with 18 teams across three divisions: 5th grade, 6th grade, and senior (7th and 8th grades combined). As a representative from the organization explains, each division has a different number of teams based on overall numbers at that grade level. This year, the Ravens’ 5th grade division featured a total of five teams, while the 6th grade and senior divisions had seven and six teams, respectively.
