COOK — Mark Fabish and the Cook Little Gophers want to make this a memorable season.
They took a giant leap Saturday in the Section 7 9-man semifinals with a punishing 16-0 victory over Littlefork-Big Falls, a team they haven’t beat since 2006.
“Defensively, that was the best game we’ve played all year,” Fabish said.
It could also be the last game they win as Cook. Next year Cook is combining with Orr and Fabish is uncertain if the co-op will even stay at the 9-man class. The second-seeded Little Gophers (9-1) play Friday at top-seeded Mountain Iron-Buhl (9-1) in the section championship.
“Huge win for us,” Fabish added. “Good team effort. Both teams played their hearts out.”
Fabish also called Saturday’s game one of the five best battles he’s seen on that field in 10 years.
The Vikings (7-3) came out sluggish in the first half, turning the ball over twice on downs while piling up four penalties. Tyler Lehman caught a pass from Cody Pfeifer for 52 yards, but the Vikings had only 43 yards the rest of the half — on 20 plays.
“Sluggish is a nice way to put it,” Vikings head coach Derek Bilben said. “We weren’t quite awake. We didn’t come out with that normal intensity.”
Cook didn’t do much in the first half either, and a dog fight ensued as both teams shut each other out and combined for 156 yards on 49 plays (3.2 yards a play) over the first 24 minutes.
The intensity picked up in the second half, “but we made too many mistakes,” Bilben said. “Defensively we played really well, but offensively we couldn’t quite get it done.”
The Vikings recovered a squib kick to open the second half, but the momentum ended with another turnover on downs in Cook territory. The Vikings stuffed a 4th-and-2 play from their own 8 on the ensuing possession, but lightning struck soon after for the Little Gophers.
Lehman bobbled a low snap in punt formation from his own 6 on 4th-and-11, and Cook blocked the punt. Cook senior Ethan Olson, the biggest player on the field at 6-feet-1, 280 pounds, fell on the ball in the end zone for the first big scoring play of the day.
“It never got executed correctly,” Bilben said of the blocked punt. “He tried to get it off quick and he got into the line. That typical punt is suppose to be an outside punt, have him get outside. Bobbled snap, couldn’t get outside, and it just didn’t work out.”
Not much worked out for the Vikings when they had the ball Saturday. In five second-half possessions, L-BF turned it over three times on downs, turned it over once with an interception and had the blocked punt for a touchdown.
Cook sealed the game when Matt Bergman scored on a 4-yard run with 1:17 to play, capping a 6-play, 30-yard drive that ate up a valuable 2 minutes and 11 seconds off the clock.
“They did kind of wear us down,” Bilben said. “Had some mental lapses during that drive. It’s one of those things if we stop them we get some momentum going, but it didn’t happen that way.”
Lehman led the Vikings with 84 yards receiving and 28 yards on the ground. Pfeifer finished 6-for-16 passing with an interception. No other Viking rushed for more than 21 yards as the visitors finished with 67 yards on 32 carries.
Dustin Lehman did most of the damage for Cook, rushing 19 times for 69 yards. Bergman had 44 yards on 13 carries. Cook finished with 152 yards rushing, including 91 in the second half.
“They did the best they could,” Bilben said, noting his team rebounded well from a lot of adversity in 2010. “In the end, they just came up a little short.”
Cook 16,
Littlefork-Big Falls 0
LBF 0 0 0 0—0
C 0 0 0 16—16
Fourth Quarter
C — Ethan Olson blocked punt fumble recovery in end zone (Matt Bergman run)
C — Bergman 4 run (Jarrett Sandberg run)
