Football: Eyes on a third title

The Vikings took advantage of numerous mistakes by the Rangers and won 36-14 to spoil homecoming at MI-B.

The Vikings will have to do it again tonight in the opening round of the Section 7 9-Man tournament, and they don’t expect it to be as lopsided this time around.

“They made some mistakes and they gave us some with some penalties, but everything they did was fixable,” said L-BF senior Jesse Steele. “They’ll be coming hard and so will we.”

Steele and fellow senior Bryce Ziemba entered the season as the only varsity holdovers from back-to-back Section 7 championship teams. A third section championship would be the most surprising of the three.

“I didn’t really know what to expect,” Steele said about his thoughts entering the season. “I knew it wasn’t going to be like the past two years. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

And it hasn’t been.

After two years of bulldozing through the schedule, the Vikings suffered their first four-game losing streak in the five-year career of head coach Derek Bilben. One of the losses came to Babbitt-Embarrass, a team seeded last in the section tournament. However, that was in Week 3, and the Vikings have since turned it around.

“We’re not making the mental mistakes anymore and we’re still making progress,” Steele said. “We still have a long way to go, though.”

The Vikings (4-4) ended the season with two victories — a blowout win at home against Cotton and the victory on the road against the Rangers (6-2), who were ranked at the time.

“I expect them to play hard,” Bilben said. “That’s the main thing. Big game. You have to be mentally ready to play a big game.”

When L-BF has struggled this season, it’s been directly linked to mistakes. When they’ve played well, games are littered with big plays and few mistakes.

“I see us playing better as a team the last couple weeks, which is a good sign,” Bilben said.

Steele is certainly ready.

“It’s going to be fun,” he said.