CROOKSTON FOOTBALL HOLDS ON TO BEAT ROSEAU IN SEASON OPENER

The Crookston Pirate Football team led 14-0 and held on late to beat the Roseau Rams 14-10 in the season opener played in Crookston. 

FIRST QUARTER – 
Crookston won the toss and elected to receive to start the game, and it turned out to be a great move.  The Pirates put together a 13 play drive that spanned 52 yards and most impressively took 10:35 off the clock.  The drive looked like it was going to stall after three plays, and Crookston had a fourth and seven on the fourth play of the game.  Crookston elected to go for it at mid-field and got the first down on an excellent passing play.  “I decided to go for it and I was trying to give us a spark,” said Crookston Coach Scott Butt.  A couple of plays later, Ethan Boll scampered 12 yards for another first down, and the drive was moving in the right direction.  Crookston followed with a couple of hard runs from Jaxon Wang, and the drive was capped with a three-yard touchdown run by Boll to give the Pirates a 6-0 lead with 1:20 left in the first quarter.  Crookston’s extra point run failed.  “That was a great way to start the season,” said Crookston Coach Scott Butt. “We had some nice blocking, we ran the ball well, and had some nice pass plays too.  All-in-all it was a great drive and to take that much time off the clock is pretty impressive.”
Roseau started their first drive of the game with 55 seconds left in the first quarter, and after a big 13-yard passing play, they had a first down.  On the next play, Crookston’s Brooks Butt sacked the Ram quarterback for a loss of five yards, and that seemed to stifle the drive.  

SECOND QUARTER- 
Crookston got the ball back, and after an Ethan Boll 11-yard run, which was followed up by a nine-yard run, the Pirates turned the ball over on downs.   Roseau didn’t take advantage of the defensive stop and punted after four plays.  Neither team could seem to get anything going the rest of the quarter, and Crookston took a 6-0 lead into halftime.  “I like what we saw from the guys in the first half,” said Coach Butt. “We did some nice things, we have some things we need to work on too, which you expect after one full week of practice.”

THIRD QUARTER-
Roseau started the second half with the ball and had plays of 18 and seven yards to start the half.  After a loss of two and a gain of two, they struck big with a 21 yard run for Jed Dunham for a first down but fumbled the ball on the next play, and Crookston recovered. Crookston started their first second-half drive with a nice seven-yard pass to Ethan Boll, but they fumbled, and Roseau recovered on the next play.  Roseau turned the ball over on downs on the next drive after four plays, including two incomplete passes, and the Pirates had the ball back at their 36-yard line.  The Pirates started the drive with an Easton Tangquist carry of five yards, Ethan Boll ran the ball for six yards, Tangquist added four more yards, and Boll had a carry of five yards.  Tanquist kept the drive going with a nine-yard run and a first down, and after three plays that only moved the ball five yards, he found Ethan Boll for a 17 yards passing play for another first down.  Two plays later, Tangquist scored on a nice eight-yard run.  Tangquist also converted the two-point conversion, and Crookston led 14-0 six seconds into the fourth quarter. “I thought we did a good job of being true to ourselves today,” said Coach Butt. “I thought Easton did a nice job of running the offense and it was a good job.”

FOURTH QUARTER
Roseau’s first drive of the fourth quarter wasn’t what they were looking for as they fumbled the ball on the third play, and Crookston’s Ethan Boll recovered the ball.  Crookston fumbled the ball, Roseau recovered, and to top it off, the Pirates were called for a 15-yard personal foul penalty.
On the next offensive series, Crookston ran three plays on their next offensive series and was forced to punt for the first time.  One of the Pirate blockers got pushed back towards the punter, and the punt went off the backside of the punt (after a high snap), and Roseau’s Gavin Helgland was given credit for the block and recovery at the Crookston 16 yard line.  The Rams ran the ball for one yard, but they finally got on the board when Steele Walsh found an opening along the Roseau sideline and scored a 15-yard touchdown, and after the two-point conversion pass, Crookston’s lead was 14-8.
On the next Pirate offensive series, they fumbled the ball again, and Roseau’s Helgeland recovered the fumble, and Roseau had the ball back at mid-field with 3:34 left in the game.
Roseau lost two yards on their first play.  On the second play of the drive, the Rams tried a passing play, and with a lot of Crookston pressure on the quarterback, the Rams tried a pass, and Jaxon Wang leaped in the air intercepted the pass with one hand to give the Pirates the ball back.  “Everybody was ecstatic when Jaxon made the play,” said Coach Butt.  “That was a big play and we had some good pressure on the quarterback too.  That was big.”
Crookston had the ball with over one minute left in the game, and Roseau used their two remaining timeouts, and Crookston had the ball fourth down and one with eight seconds left.  On the fourth-down play, Crookston elected to kill time and run the ball back into the endzone, but Roseau tackled the quarterback in the endzone for a safety with no time left on the clock.  Crookston led 14-10, but an illegal block to the back penalty was called on the Pirates and they were forced to free kick the ball from their 10-yard line with no time on the clock.   On the return, Roseau tried a few lateral pitches, but Crookston was able to finally tackle the Ram ball-carrier for the 14-10 victory.  “They say the penalty caused the safety.  We weren’t planning on taking the safety, we were just trying to run the clock out,” said Pirate Coach Scott Butt. “Things happen and it is what it is.  Give Roseau credit they never gave up and they did a lot of things well.  I thought our kids defensively flew around and played fast and violent.  It looked like the kids were having fun.”

Crookston improves to 1-0 and will travel to West Central Area on Friday at 6:00 p.m.  Roseau drops to 0-1 on the year.

We had some audio difficulties with the video stream.  We are still figuring things out with our streaming.  Things will get better with new equipment arriving soon, including a scoreboard graphic and more.

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1st Quarter
1:20 – CROX – Ethan Boll 3 yard run (run failed)

2nd Quarter
No scoring

3rd Quarter
No scoring

4th Quarter
11:54 – CROX – Easton Tangquist 8 yard run (Tangquist run)
5:06 – Roseau – Steele Walsh 15 yard run (Race Knochemus pass to Mavrik Jacobson)
0:00 – Roseau – Safety

INDIVIDUAL STATS