Sports
Saints march past Braves in late-game thriller
Tyler Ohmann
09/11/2012
A wild finish left the Bottineau Braves stunned as they lost last Friday’s homecoming game against Bismarck St. Mary’s 29-22 at Les Chrisitian Field in Bottineau.
The Braves held a 15-14 lead late in the fourth quarter thanks to a second quarter safety. As time ticked off the clock Saints quarterback Trent Bohan led his team methodically down the field.
On fourth down Bohan tosses a pass to the corner of the endzone. The pass was batted into the air and Brian Obritsch came down with it. A two-point conversion gave Bismarck-St. Mary’s a 22-15 lead with less than a minute to play.
On ensuing drives first play from scrimmage for Bottineau a double pass from Tanner Bickford to wide out Harrison Aide to a second receiver, junior Andrew Hill, went 40 yards for a score, an Alberto Moncera kick and the game was tied with a little more than 30 seconds left. Bottineau had thought they just sent the game to overtime.
“When the coach called it I went up to Harrison (Aide) and said, ‘bread and butter,’ and we both had a huge grin on our face,” Hill said. “We were 99.9 percent sure it would work.”
On the Saints first play from scrimmage Bohan again would become the hero as he tossed a strike to a wide open Darius Sparks that glanced off his helmet and into his arms and he finished a 50-yard pass play to close out the game with a 29-22 win.
“You don’t see that very often,” said Braves coach Rob Bedlion. “We missed an assignment there at the end, but nothing was from a lack of effort, the kids played hard, and if we keep playing like then we can do something.”
Hill, a defensive back, was stunned following the play.
“Who knows, they could have caught us out of breath, we could have misplayed it, but I don’t know what happened on that play,” Hill said. “There was 100 percent effort and 100,000 in the last five minutes, it was a pretty intense game.”
Bottineau was led defensively by the cornerback Aide who had two interceptions in the game.
Wyatt Johnson led the Braves with 11 tackles. Senior Vince Bechtold had a blocked extra point in the game and five tackles.
Senior tailback Trevor Wettlaufer scored the other two touchdowns for the Braves. One was an 80-yard run where Wettlaufer showed off his track skills as he out ran the Saints defense for the score. Robert Richter nabbed the other two touchdowns for the Saints, one on a pass from Bohan.
Wettlaufer finished the game with 28 carries for 241 yards on the ground.
Bedlion was proud of his teams play and effort.
“I’m extremely proud of the way we played, and battled the whole ball game,” Bedlion said. “We struggled a bit early in the game, but we came back and got things rolling on the ground. I can’t say enough about how we played, I thought we played great.”
Hill said the team should be able to move on from the loss. They are now focused on rival Rugby, who they travel to play at 7 p.m. on Friday.
“We are just looking forward to another rivalry against Rugby,” Hill said. “I don’t think we should have a tough time shaking this loss off. We didn’t lose because we didn’t try hard, we gave it our all, and I think we should be proud of how we played.”