Friday Night Lights: Kicking It Blue Pony Style

When it comes to high school football the kicking game can sometimes be an adventure.

But with Max Olson, the Havre Blue Ponies may have found a long-term answer, that will be anything but a weakness.

Olson, who is a freshman kicker/kickoff specialist for the Ponies, is in the midst of his first football season. However, he does have a background in soccer, which helped him earn the job as Havre High's starting kicker.

"It has been really fun so far," Olson said of playing football. "But it's a different way of kicking the ball, so that was something that I needed to learn."

Certainly, the techniques to kicking a soccer ball and a football are different. There are also different targets. In soccer, you are trying to beat a keeper and shoot the ball into a goal. Furthermore, the ball is often moving and is kicked directly off the ground. In football, there is a tee for kickoffs and in high school, a kicking tee can also be used to place the football through the uprights.

"It's a little different," Olson said. "The ball is different, so that took time to get used to. But I would say after the first couple weeks, I got pretty comfortable."

Before this season, Olson had never played football. His two sports of choice were soccer and basketball. Last year, Olson starred for the Hi-Line United soccer team, scoring 13 goals and also leading the club in assists.

While Olson's role on the football field is different from the one he plays on the soccer pitch, as a striker, who constantly has the ball in his possession, he has been effective for the Ponies this season. However, he did say coming on, only during certain parts of the game is one of the big differences between scoring a goal and kicking extra points.

"When you score a goal, it's just something that happens," Olson said. "It's just something that comes out of the moment. In football, you go out and kick when you get a touchdown."

Of course, with anything new, it took Olson some time to get adjusted to kicking extra points in game action. To start the year, he made just one of three extra points. Yet, as the season has progressed, he has gotten better and better and is now 6/11, with five makes in his last seven attempts.

And according to Havre High head coach Ryan Gatch, Olson isn't just a weapon when it comes to PATs, but he also adds a weapon to the kickoffs with his ability to kick directionally or perform an onside kick.

"Max is a pretty solid kicker," Gatch said. "He is really good about placing the ball and things like that, so that is a weapon that we try to use to exploit what teams are doing with their kickoff return. We will try to quick kick or do a directional kick, if we think we can take advantage of something."

Olson also said he was confident in his ability to make a field goal. He said he wasn't sure what his range was, but that he felt good from about 30 yards or so. Yet, in practice, he said he has made a field goal from as far as 45 yards out.

"I haven't tried one in a game yet, so I am not sure how far," Olson said. "But I feel pretty good from about 30 yards out."

At this point, Olson, who also plays wide receiver and defensive back for the freshman team, said he wasn't sure about his football future. But if the Ponies can get him to stick to the gridiron, his ability to impact the game will only become more profound.

Olson and the Ponies, who are 0-6 on the season, will shoot for the first win of the year tonight on the road against Billings Central. Kickoff is set for 7.