Sports

Bottineau’s season ends in road loss at Harvey Hornets

By Tyler Ohmann

10/22/2013

A 42-6 loss at the hands of Harvey-Wells County (HWC) ended the Bottineau Braves football season last Saturday.

Several big plays led to scores for the Hornets as they routed the Braves and dropped Bottineau to a 2-6 final record in their first season in Class A.

“We were definitely disappointed to end our season with this loss,” stated Braves head coach Rob Bedlion. “We played hard and gave a lot of effort but gave up too many big plays through the air and squandered some opportunities on offense.”

The first quarter was deadlocked until Hornets quarterback Mark Nyhus hit Hunter Goldade for a 23-yard touchdown. A two point conversion made it 8-0 Hornets through one.

The Hornets kept their momentum rolling in the second quarter as they scored three times on three more big plays.

First Nyhus found Evan Nitz for a 22-yard score. Later in the quarter Parker Bachmeier intercepted an Andrew Hill pass and returned it 57 yards to pay dirt.

Lastly Landon Littlefield broke out to a 66-yard touchdown run. That gave HWC a 28-0 lead at halftime.

The Hornets would score twice more in the second half. Once on a pass from Nyhus to Littlefield in the third quarter, and one as Nyhus found Goldade once again, this time on a 47-yard score.

Bottineau did break the shutout as Hill finally broke out a long run and finished it with a 68-yard touchdown run.

One thing that Bedlion was happy with was the Bottineau running game, which went for 216 yards on 31 carries.

“We were able to run the ball effectively most of the day. We just weren’t able to finish some drives early in the game that could have kept the game competitive,” Bedlion stated. “We did a very good job against their rushing game and besides one big run, I thought they had very little success on the ground.”

Junior Ethan Kerslake finished with 116 yards rushing on the day. Hill, with that 68-yard touchdown run, had 94 yards on five carries.
Defensively the Braves were led by Kerslake (10 tackles), Jayhawk Shriver (seven tackles, forced fumble) and John Gohman (two tackles, interception).

Bedlion said that early turnovers did not help the Braves cause on the day.

“I thought the difference in the game was a couple of turnovers that killed some early drives that we were moving the ball in, and HWC’s ability to hit some big pass plays,” Bedlion stated.

Bedlion was happy with the players that he coached this season, despite the losing record.

“This has been a good group to coach. These kids have worked extremely hard and we are very proud of them,” Bedlion stated. “We all wish our win/loss record could have been better but that doesn’t take away from how competitive and hard working this group has been.”

Note:

Kerslake had 657 yards rushing in seven games (no stats available for a loss early in the season to Velva).