Sports

Sloppy but successful

Matthew Semisch

08/26/2014

When the football team from Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) opened its 2014 season on Saturday, the game was about as clean as the field.

First, there were the passes and penalty flags seemed to be forever dropping in DCB’s first-ever game as a Minnesota College Athletic Conference (MCAC) member.

Then there’s the air attack that the Lumberjacks desired but which hardly got off the ground on Saturday against Minnesota West (MW).

Penalties were a big problem, too. Through 14 DCB penalties for 138 yards, frustration was clearly seen up and down the home team’s sideline at Bottineau’s Les Christian Field.

It wasn’t any different on the Bluejays’ side, either. MW finished the game having been flagged for nine penalties for 92 yards.

Making things worse was that the weather didn’t help, as rain and winds picked up at halftime and altered somewhat the teams’ approaches in the second half. Through it all, though, DCB came away with a 22-9 win.

“It was a good win, but it showed us that we’ve got a lot to work on,” Lumberjacks head coach Tim Pfeifer said after his team’s season-opening victory. “We had some really good moments but some really disappointing moments, too.”

Positives and negatives for DCB popped up in each of the game’s four periods, and it didn’t take long for the see-saw to get moving.

DCB won the coin toss and deferred to the second half, thus allowing MW’s offense to hit the field first after the opening kickoff.

The Bluejays’ offense wasn’t out there long, though, as a fumble on their first play from scrimmage put DCB in prime scoring position as it started its opening drive on the MW 15 yard line.

However, the Jacks then failed to capitalize on what was unquestionably a dream start to the game. DCB’s offense stalled on its first drive of the game before kicker Drayton Murphy missed wide-left on a 32-yard field goal that would have put the Jacks up 3-0 early.

He later redeemed himself with a 21-yard kick between the uprights with four seconds left in the first quarter. That gave DCB a 10-0 lead 6:17 after a seven-yard touchdown run from freshman running back JR Bass had finally opened Saturday’s scoring.

DCB then allowed MW back into the game with just under six minutes remaining until halftime. The Bluejays were thrown a deficit-cutting lifeline when Aryl Cinevert housed a 40-yard punt return for a MW touchdown.

The resulting 10-7 scoreline held firm until the half, a point in the game where the Jacks probably should’ve had a more comfortable lead than they did.

DCB’s defense was largely outstanding in the first half – MW only gained 20 yards, all on the ground, in the first two quarters – but the Jacks’ own offense was a different story.

Starting quarterback DeAngelo Orum was 3-for-9 through the air in the first half for only 24 yards, and Bass and Orum were the Jacks’ leading rushers in the first two quarters with 13 yards apiece.

To top the opening half off, Murphy again missed on a field goal, this time kicking the football too low and too far to the left on the last play of the second quarter.

Discipline was also an issue for DCB in the first half. Nine penalties for 98 yards in the first two quarters hampered the Lumberjacks against a MW team that was struggling to create many of its own opportunities.

“We were not very sharp, and ‘sloppy’ is a fair way to put it,” Pfeirfer said in assessing his team’s performance over the course of the game. “We had way too many penalties and missed too many assignments.

“That’s the sort of thing that happens in a first game, but that first half in particular showed us that we’ve got a lot to work on.”

The second half didn’t exhibit a night-and-day difference for DCB, but the Jacks did show improvement.

DCB’s defense came up big again in the second half, especially late in the third quarter when freshman linebacker Josh Best picked off a Colin Brons pass.

He wasn’t done when he snatched the ball out of the air, though, as he then took it all the way back 48 yards for a Jacks touchdown to put his team up 22-7.

MW’s eighth and ninth points of the game came on the next play when a turnover on the Jacks’ conversion was taken to the opposite end zone.

The resulting score of 22-9 remained throughout the fourth quarter, with neither team able to put more points on the scoreboard.

Pfeifer acknowledged that some of his team’s mistakes can be chalked up to Saturday’s game being the first of DCB’s season. He was disappointed with the mistakes his team made en route to going 1-0 on the year, but he’s also confident that the wrinkles can get ironed out quickly enough.

“Hopefully it gets better and, as you move along in the season, you should get a little more comfortable out there, and I’m sure the nerves of it being the first game has something to do with it,” Pfeifer said, “But that doesn’t help us today. It has to help us moving forward.

“We lined up wrong several times and committed some bad penalties and blew a couple things and that all hurt us, but they’re good kids. They’ll adjust.”

DCB is idle next weekend ahead of a Sept. 6 visit to Minnesota State-Fergus Falls.