Roseau Ends The Pirate Football Season

The Crookston Pirate Football team had a lead early in the second quarter, but the Roseau Rams scored two unanswered touchdowns on their way to a 25-12 victory in the first round of the Section 8AA Football playoffs in a game played at Rueben J. Halvorson Field in Roseau.
The game had an interesting start when Crookston kicked the ball off and the Pirates forced a fumble on the return and recovered the ball. On Crookston’s first offensive play, they fumbled the ball and Roseau recovered the ball, all in the first 21 seconds of the game. Roseau had their first offensive series and on the sixth play the Pirates forced another fumble and Blake Fee recovered the ball in the pile and the Pirates had the ball back. “I don’t know if anybody wanted the ball at the beginning of the game,” said Pirate Coach Scott Butt. “They fumbled, we fumbled, and you could tell it was nerves and both teams did a good job of ripping the ball out.” Things finally settled down for both teams and Crookston had the ball for their second series and the Pirates sophomore quarterback, Easton Tangquist, completed a 13-yard pass to Nick Garmen for a first down and three plays later the drive stalled, and Crookston was forced to punt. After a 30-yard Pirate punt, Roseau had the ball at their own 36-yard line and on their first play of the drive, Ben Olson ran 64 yards for a touchdown and less than four minutes into the game the Rams led 7-0. “We actually hit him in the backfield,” said Coach Butt. “We had to make sure we wrapped up and we didn’t, and he made us pay.”
The third time was the charm for the Pirate offense when they put together an 11-play drive. The drive started with a 19-yard run from Joe Doda and a few plays later he carried the ball 20 yards and on the next play a 15-yard carry and Lukas Meier added a 15-yard carry before he scored on a three-yard run and after the extra point run failed Roseau led 7-6. The 11-play Crookston drive spanned 85 yards with five first downs and gobbled up five minutes and six seconds of the clock. “I was so proud of our kids on that drive,” said Coach Butt. “Joe ran so hard, he ran hard and he ran hard. He had a great game, maybe the best of his career. The big boys did such a good job and that is the way it was supposed to look.” Roseau followed with three plays and a punt and Crookston started their next drive at their own 29-yard line.
On the first play of the drive, Crookston eighth-grader Ethan Boll ran the ball 21 yards on his first varsity carry, Lukas Meier had a 12-yard carry, Doda added a 15-yard carry to set up a one-yard touchdown run for Meier and Crookston led 12-7 with 9:55 left in the first half. “Ethan Boll showed what kind of football player he’s going to be down the road,” said Coach Butt. “He is a big strong athletic kid and he ran the ball hard tonight.” Things were looking good for Crookston after a spirited start for the Pirates. Roseau responded in a big way on their next offensive series when Adam LePard started the drive with a carry of 33 yards and two plays later he added 13 more. Three plays later, Olson scored his second touchdown of the game on a five-yard run and after a two-point conversion, Roseau led 15-12 with 7:41 left in the half. Crookston struggled on the offensive end in their final two offensive series of the half and tried a fake punt, but came up empty on a carry for no gain and Roseau had the ball at the Crookston 34 yard line with 50 seconds left in the half. Roseau ran three plays and missed a 27-yard field goal, wide left and Roseau took a 15-12 lead into halftime. “Our kids played extremely hard and we had Roseau guessing and we did a good job of blocking and the backs ran hard,” said Coach Butt. “We were doing what we wanted to do, but we struggled a bit on making adjustments. I thought we played pretty good defense, but we got in some bad positions.”
Crookston started the second half with the ball and was forced into a three and out and they were forced to punt. The snap was low, Blake Fee scooped up the ball and Roseau chased him down for a loss of nine yards and more importantly for Roseau, they had the ball first and 10 at the Crookston 11-yard line. “That is not what we discussed at halftime,” said Coach Butt. “We goofed up and lined up in the wrong formations and in the wrong spot and put ourselves in a deep hole.” On the first Ram play, Ben Olson scored on an 11-yard carry to give Roseau a 25-12 lead less than two minutes into the second half. Crookston’s offense struggled the rest of the way and turned the ball over on downs a couple of times and Roseau missed another 27-yard field goal and the Pirates finished the game by getting all the seniors on the field and Roseau won 25-12 to advance to the Section 8AA semi-finals. Crookston will lose eight seniors, Chris Kazmierczak, Lukas Meier, Sam Overgaard, Blake Fee, Jaden Lubarski, Nick Garmen, Sam Sanchez, and Damien Hodgson. “I love those seniors and there was a lot of tears shed on the sidelines at the end,” said an emotional Coach Butt. “I have been around these seniors for a long time now and there is a lot of them that hang out a lot together and hang out at my house and I am going to miss the heck out of them.”
Crookston’s season comes to an end with a 2-7 record, while Roseau improves to 4-5 on the year and they will travel to Barnesville on Saturday to play in the Section 8AA semi-finals at 2:00 p.m.

Sam Sanchez and Nick Garmen in on the tackle of a Ram running back

Brooks Butt kicks off    Blake Fee gets ready to punt

1st Quarter
8:09  – Roseau –  Ben Olson 64 yard run  (Hunter Nelson kick)
2:54  – Crookston –  Lukas Meier 3 yard run  (run failed)

2nd Quarter
9:55  –  Crookston –  Lukas Meier  1 yard run  (run failed)
7:41 –   Roseau  –  Ben Olson  5 yard run  (Ben Olson run)

4th Quarter
No Scoring

The future is bright for the Pirate football program with Ethan Boll (8th grader) rushing for 50 yards and Gunnar Gunderson (Freshman) with a throw at quarterback

Rushing

Passing

Receiving

     Haze/smoke was noticeable in the second half