Sports

Braves seniors’ faces said it all

By Matthew Semisch

10/21/2014

Have you ever felt the need to apologize to someone you never actually wronged in the first place?

You have my thanks if your answer to that question is “yes.” If that was indeed your response, it makes me feel a little bit better about my current predicament.

At the risk of working myself up again, allow me to paint the picture for you.

On Wednesday night, Bottineau High’s football team took part in its final game of the 2014 season. No matter what was going to happen in the Braves’ eventual 28-0 loss to Harvey-Wells County (H-WC), Bottineau (2-6) wasn’t heading to the Class A state playoffs.

Wednesday marked the Braves’ final home game of the year, too. As such, the occasion was set aside as “Senior Night,” a chance for BHS to honor its football team’s seniors and thank the student-athletes for their hard work and dedication.

The Braves’ six seniors and senior cheerleader Madison Klebe were acknowledged just before the game. Their parents joined their children on the edge of the field closest to the Les Christian Field grandstand as the names were read.

“Senior Night,” a tradition among high school and college sports teams across the country, had gotten off to a good start. Unfortunately for Bottineau, though, the event didn’t end as well as it begun.

On the inner limits of the field, the Braves struggled all night and fell to their third consecutive 2-6 finish. Getting shut out by the Hornets was a harsh fate - a holding penalty negated a late would-be touchdown run from Ethan Kerslake - but Bottineau hadn’t deserved to win.

I knew going into Wednesday night that H-WC was favored to win, and there were good reasons for that.

The Hornets needed to win in order to qualify for the playoffs. On the other side of the field was  a Bottineau team that racked up too few wins this season and was left with little to play for relative to what H-WC had on the line.

The Braves did have pride left to play for, however. On top of that, several BHS seniors were playing in likely their last-ever competitive football game.

The senior that the proverbial spotlight burned brightest upon was Kerslake, and there’s no mystery as to why.

The Braves’ star running back missed two games in the first half of the season due to a sprained knee. He scored nine of the Braves’ 11 touchdowns, though, in the six games in which he did feature.

With that in mind, I came into Wednesday night wanting to speak with Kerslake after the game whether the Braves won it or not. He’d carried Bottineau to the success it did have this season, and I thought it would be only right to let him have the last word on his high school football career.

When I saw him and the five other Braves seniors after the game, though, I scrapped my plan instantly.

None of their 12 eyes were clear at that point, and nor were the rest of their faces. Each of them knew this was the end of a chapter in their lives.

I also thought of their parents. The moment couldn’t have been easy on them, either.

I was prompted into thinking that in part when, after interviewing Braves head coach Rob Bedlion, I spotted Dixie Pasicznyk on the home sideline.

Pasicznyk is a co-worker of mine at the Courant. She’s also the mother of two BHS football players, one of them being senior lineman Jesse Heil.

“How’s Jesse?” she asked as she approached me. All I could think to say in response - and I did say this - was, “How are all of them?”

What happened late Wednesday night was something the six seniors and their parents both could and couldn’t have prepared for. I didn’t have the same sort of problem, as I didn’t have quite as personal of an interest.

At the time, it was relatively easy for me to think clearly about the occasion. It’s even easier now as I write this, sat at my desk in a warm office with a can of Diet Coke and the band Fleet Foxes playing on Spotify to keep me company.

Bottineau’s seniors and their parents didn’t have such cushy luxuries on that chilly night.They knew that game marked the end, but you can’t fully prepare for the end when you’ve never been.

That goes double for high school kids. I’ve interviewed many college seniors on this type of occasion in prior job experiences, but I wasn’t going to put a kid hardly more than half my age through that.

That’s where I feel bad for them. They should be proud of themselves, but they weren’t able to finish the way they had wanted.