The Ticker: A quick look at area teams in action

Football

Moose Lake/Willow River 28

Crosby-Ironton 6

The Rebels improved to 3-0 on the season with an impressive home win over the Rangers. ML/WR outgained the Rangers 296 to 82 yards for the game.

Jackson Thompson had another impressive game for the Rebels by scoring twice. Thompson’s first touchdown came on a 7-yard touchdown dash and his second came on an impressive 93-yard punt return for a score. Both Logan Orvedahl and Carter Johnson also scored for the Rebels. ML/WR led 16-0 at halftime and did not allow the Rangers to score until the fourth quarter.

Esko 21

Pine City 7

The Eskomos gave up the first touchdown of the game and then rebounded to beat a tough Pine City Dragons squad on Friday.

Pine City got on the board in the first quarter on a Hunter Bostrom 40-yard touchdown run as they built a 7-0 lead. Esko answered with a first quarter score of their own when quarterback Kevin Gregory punched in from two yards out. After the extra point, the game was even at 7-7.

Esko added two third-quarter scores on a Gregory one-yard touchdown run and when Eli Blue caught a 67-yard pass for a score to push the lead to 21-7.

“We had a great team effort on defense,” said Esko coach Scott Arntson. “Pine City plays us tough every year, it’s always a tight game. I still see some glimpse of what we are capable of, however we still are not consistent enough.”

The Eskomos improved to 2-1 with the win.

North Woods 46

Barnum 0

Sometimes a score doesn’t indicate exactly how close a football game was. That was the case on Friday when the Barnum Bombers dropped a 46-0 score to North Woods. Entering the fourth quarter the Bombers were trailing by two scores, but at that point things got lopsided as the Grizzlies got on a roll and scored 30 straight points.

“As a coaching staff, we do not feel as though the score reflected the effort our players put into this game,” said Barnum coach Robert Minkkenen. “It was 0-16 heading into the fourth quarter, and our defense was solid throughout the game. They tallied up a few scores at the end, once the starters were out. Northwoods was a tough team, and our boys were up to the challenge. We just need to find a way to gain and maintain momentum offensively.”

Freshman Caden Sheff was the Bombers leading rusher on offense with 12 carries good for 62 yards. He was also the leading tackler on defense with 15 tackles including one tackle for loss. Senior Aiden Litfin had 13 tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble on defense while senior Garrett Coughlin had eight tackles and two sacks on defense.

Bigfork 46

Cromwell Area 32

The Huskies entered the game without a win against the unbeaten Cards, but when the dust cleared it was the Cardinals who found themselves on the losing end of the score for the first time this season.

“Bigfork came out ready to go, executed on offense and took it to us,” said Cromwell coach Jeff Gronner. “They are a veteran team. To be honest I was a little surprised they were 0-2 after watching them on film. They controlled the line of scrimmage and basically ran two different kinds of options all night and we could not stop either.”

Despite the tough day on defense, the Cards offense still managed to put up 32 points in a loss.

“On offense we played well for the most part, but we just didn’t make plays on important two-point conversions,” Gronner said. “Overall I thought Bigfork was ready to play and we were not. They were the more physical, more aggressive team for the majority of the night. We need to learn from this and get better because of it.”

Find more photos of the week’s sports action online at PineKnotNews.com