Sports
Beyond reach
Matthew Semisch
10/21/2014
There’s an uncomfortably large amount of truth to the old saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Bottineau High’s football team found that out in particularly harsh fashion on Wednesday night. The Braves came into their 2014 season finale against Harvey-Wells County looking to pick up a first home win of the season, but Bottineau instead fell 28-0 to the Hornets.
What stings most of all, though, isn’t the fact that the Braves were shut out. That the loss condemned Bottineau to a third 2-6 finish in as many seasons will leave the longest-lingering taste in the mouth.
The Braves were unable to keep that unsettling streak from increasing. However, Bottineau head coach Rob Bedlion felt that his team’s struggles on Wednesday - and, in fact, throughout the course of the season - weren’t for a want of trying.
“I thought the kids played really hard tonight and really all year, and there was a lot of effort put forward,” Bedlion said. “You look at tonight, and Harvey’s a really physical team and has a lot of speed, and they used all that to their advantage tonight, but I thought our kids played hard and stuck with it, and it’s been that way all season.
“I think we were lacking in a few spots, but it wasn’t anything to do with how hard our guys worked. They’ve worked hard all year and they’ve been a fun group to coach.”
As disappointing as the end of the Braves’ 2014 campaign was, though, it’s hard to argue with the final result. H-WC found itself up 22-0 at halftime and never really lost control in the second half.
A would-be 75-yard touchdown run from Bottineau senior running back Ethan Kerslake with 1:35 left in the game nearly ruined the Hornets’ shutout attempt. The play was canceled out, however, by a holding penalty against the Braves much nearer to the line of scrimmage.
Even if Kerslake’s touchdown had counted, though, it’d have been a mere consolation. Bottineau struggled to move the ball all night, and the Braves’ 4-for-13 showing on third downs only added to BHS’s misery.
The Hornets only went 1-for-6 on third downs on Wednesday against a Bottineau defense that put in one of its best performances of the season.
That one third-down conversion, however, arrived in the form of a 26-yard touchdown carry by Hornets running back Isaiah Merrill just under three minutes into the second quarter.
That was Merrill’s second of two touchdowns on the night.He’d also opened the game’s scoring through a 14-yard run with 4:28 left in the opening frame.
As per usual, Kerslake led Bottineau’s offense on Wednesday in picking up 87 yards on 28 carries. He was held scoreless, however, for the first time in BHS’s final four games of 2014.
He was unquestionably the Braves’ leading light in his senior season. Kerslake missed two games early in the season due to a sprained knee, but he scored nine of BHS’s 11 touchdowns in the six games in which he appeared.
“He’s a great football player and a really good athlete,” Bedlion said, “And I don’t know if anyone on our team works harder than he does.
“He sprained his knee against North Prairie in the first week of the year, and I don’t think it’s really ever been 100 percent since then. That’s been bugging him and has stuck with him and he had some brace issues tonight.
“It’s just kind of stuff where he wasn’t 100 percent, but he gives 100 percent,” Bedlion continued. “He just couldn’t do as much as he wanted to do. That was the only problem with him tonight.”
Including Kerslake, the Braves lose six seniors from this season’s roster. All six were honored on Wednesday night ahead of their final game for BHS.