A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Young Barnum team struggles
Barnum's Garrett Coughlin hangs on to tackle Moose-Lake/Willow River's Blake Juhl last week.
The Rebels' Brady Watrin tackles Bombers quarterback Blaze Hurst.
The Rebels' Mason Olson looking to pass down field in the first quarter
Things got tough early for Barnum in Friday night's football matchup with Moose Lake-Willow River. The Rebels got out to a two-touchdown lead and were up 42-0 at the end of the first half. By the time the dust cleared, ML-WR had picked up its second-straight win by beating the Bombers 78-0.
"A margin of victory like that is never desired," said Rebels coach Dave Louzek. "Every one of our kids, right on down to the ninth-graders, played a lot in the game."
A big key to the Rebel victory was the play of quarterback Mason Olson, who threw four first-half touchdown passes.
"Mason is in his second year of starting at quarterback for us, so he plays with an increased level of confidence and has a better understanding of where to throw the ball," Louzek said. "We have very athletic receivers who can catch the ball and run after the catch. We expect many big plays from our offense this year."
There was no shortage of big plays for the Rebels Friday as Olson connected on touchdown passes of 13 and 14 yards to Eli Werner and Brady Watrin in the first quarter as ML-WR built the lead to 14-0.
"Moose Lake-Willow River had a lot of big plays against us," Barnum coach Mike Klyve said. "We needed to tackle better and do a better job of executing our assignments. They have some good size and play a physical brand of football. We have some younger guys and we had a hard time holding the line of scrimmage."
Early in the second quarter, Olson hit Carter Johnson on a 90-yard touchdown pass, which was followed by a 2-yard touchdown run from Logan Orvedahl, then another pass covering 30 yards from Olson to Landin Kurhajetz and another 3-yard run from Blake Juhl.
"Our guys battled, but we are not very deep right now," Klyve said. "We really had only 13 players who played the bulk of the game. I was proud of the way our starters battled early in the game. Even when they were gassed at the end, our starters gave us what they had and wanted to keep playing."
The war of attrition continued into the second half as Juhl scored on a 63-yard romp, Logan Privette ran 7 yards for a score and Jackson Thompson ripped off a 68-yard touchdown run - all in the third quarter.
