The Crookston Pirate Football team turned the ball over seven times in the game and the #3 ranked Barnesville Trojans cruised to a 28-0 victory in a Section 8AA game played in Barnesville on a cold, rainy night.
Crookston started the game with the ball and on the second play of the game, Brady Butt bombed a 38-yard pass to Jaden Lubarski for a first down. Three plays later, Crookston had the snap go off the quarterback’s hands and Barnesville’s Hunter Zenzen recovered the ball at the Pirate 46 yard line. Barnesville’s first play was a 13 yard run by the Adam Tonsfeldt and two plays later Nick Detloff took a handoff up the middle for 27 yards and a touchdown to give Barnesville a 6-0 lead. “We got caught looking in the backfield and I think he got 10 yards down the field before anybody realized he had the ball,” said Pirate Coach Scott Butt. ” The Trojan two-point conversion was good for an 8-0 lead less than four minutes into the game. Crookston’s second offensive series was as bad as the first as the snap was off the mark again and Barnesville recovered another Pirate fumble at the Crookston seven-yard line. Crookston received a much-needed break when Barnesville fumbled the ball on the third play of the series and the Pirate’s Zach Brown came flying in to recover the fumble. Crookston’s third series was unfortunately as bad as the first two when they threw an interception on the fourth play of the drive and Barnesville had the ball at the Crookston 40 yard line. On Barnesville’s first play of the series, Detloff ran for 20 yards to get the ball to the 20-yard line. Five plays later Tonsfeldt scored on a one-yard run on the quarterback keeper and after a two-point conversion, Barnesville led 16-0 with six seconds left in the first quarter. “We put our defense in a bad position for all 16 of those points,” said Coach Butt. “We have to do a better job of taking care of the ball because little things like that come back to haunt you.” Crookston’s fourth offensive series wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the disaster the first three were when they were forced to punt on a three-and-out. Barnesville started the drive at their own 40-yard line and had a 14 yard run from Detloff to get the ball into Crookston territory. Two plays later, Barnesville completed a 32-yard pass from Tonsfeldt to Grant Inniger and a couple plays later they scored on Kellen Hinsz one-yard run to take a 22-0 lead with 8:33 left in the first half. Crookston’s offense continued their turnover trend when they fumbled the ball again and Barnesville had the ball with 6:48 left in the half. They ran 10 plays and milked the clock to less than a minute and went for a fourth down and goal at the Pirate five-yard line and didn’t get the first down with nine seconds left in the half. Barnesville took the 22-0 lead into halftime. Crookston only had 11 yards rushing in the first half and 80 yards of total offense. “You have to give Barnesville a lot of credit for coming after us,” said Coach Butt. “We weren’t reading and we were caught looking in the backfield. I thought we did a better job defensively as the game went along. We started to do a better job on defense and we were forcing things, but we couldn’t get anything going offensively.”
Crookston kicked off to start the second half and Preston Snobl took the kick 68 yards up the middle for a kickoff return for a touchdown 10 seconds into the second half for a 28-0 lead. Neither team ever got anything going offensively in the second half as the teams combined for 10 fumbles and two interceptions. Crookston’s second drive of the second half didn’t start well and the Pirates had the ball fourth down and 10 yards from their own 10-yard line. Blake Fee was back to punt for the Pirates and when he caught the snap he took off to the right and sprinted 30 yards down the Barnesville sidelines and ran over a Trojan tackler to get five more yards for 35 yards total on the play and a Pirate first down. “We went rugby punt and Blake has the option if he can get to the edge he can go,” said Coach Butt. “Give credit to Brody (Davidson) to call it and we did a good job to seal the edge and I thought Blake might have a chance to go all the way.” Three plays later the Pirates fumbled the ball again and turned it over. Neither team had a big scoring threat in the second half and Barnesville held on for the 28-0 homecoming victory.
Crookston only had 126 yards in the game, 35 on a fake punt and 38 on a Jaden Lubarski reception. Barnesville’s starting offense has only given up two touchdowns in six games. “We have to do a better job of taking care of the ball and you can blame some of it on the weather, but even in bad conditions you have to take care of the ball,” said Coach Butt. “We did a better job defensively in the second half, but you have to give your defense a chance and we need some more things from our offense and we are still trying to adjust to life without Leyton (Salentine).”
Crookston drops to 2-4 on the year and will host Pelican Rapids on Friday for homecoming. Barnesville improves to 6-0 on the year and will travel to Hawley for a matchup of two of the top 10 ranked teams in Class AA on Friday.
  Brady Wisk brings down a Barnesville player
|
1st |
2nd | 3rd | 4th |
FINAL |
|
| CROOKSTON | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Barnesville | 16 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 28 |
Blake Fee runs for 35 yards on a fake punt
1st Quarter
8:41 – Barnesville – Nick Detloff 27 yard run (Chase Brenner run)
0:06 – Barnesville – Adam Tonsfeldt 1 yard run (Chase Brenner run)
2nd Quarter
8:33 – Barnesville – Kellen Hinsz 1 yard run (run failed)
3rd Quarter
11:50 – Barnesville – Preston Snobl 68 yard kick off return (run failed)
4th Quarter
No scoring
  Joe Doda looks for room on one of his runs
| CROOKSTON | Barnesville | |
| First Downs | 7 | 20 |
| Rushing-Yards | 34-80 | 38-234 |
| Passing | 2-13-2 | 4-11-0 |
| Passing Yards | 46 | 93 |
| Total Yards | 126 | 327 |
| Fumbles-Lost | 5-3 | 5-4 |
| Penalties-Yards | 3-21 | 3-25 |
| Punts-Yards Ave. | 6-26 | 1-35 |
Rushing
| Crookston | Barnesville |
| Brady Butt           16-5 | Adam Tonsfeldt     9-21 |
| Joe Doda               11-12 | Nick Detloff           8-104 |
| Lukas Meier          5-27 | Chase Brenner         8-40 |
| Blake Fee               1-35 | Kellen Hinsz            6-35 |
| Easton Tangquist     1-1 | Hunter Anderson    3-14 |
| Preston Snobl         2-8 | |
| Aaron Schiefert      1-15 | |
| Sam Askegaard      1- (-3) |
Passing
| Brady Butt            2-12-2   46 yards |
Adam Tonsfeldt          4-7-0  93 yards |
| Easton Tangquist     0-1-0 |
Sam Askegaard            0-4-0 |
Receiving
| Jaden Lubarski     1-38 | Grant Inniger    2-68 |
| Lukas Meier        1-8 | Hunter Zenzen   2-25 |
