Though Littlefork-Big Falls’ football team showed signs of waging a comeback midway through Friday’s home game against Mountain Iron-Buhl, the final outcome turned out to be another lopsided loss for the Vikings.
For the third week in a row, L-BF gave up 50 or more points as the Vikings dropped to 0-3 for the season with a 50-14 loss to the Rangers.
“We just got beat by a better team,” said L-BF head coach Derek Bilben. “Defense is our weakest link. We just have to get better, and that’s our choice.
“At this point in the season, we’ve got to put our first three games behind us and kind of start over. On offense we know we can move the ball. It just comes down to a few mistakes, and you know we’re in this ballgame.”
The Vikings found themselves down by two touchdowns in the opening quarter when they approached the Rangers’ goal line with an opportunity to cut the deficit in half. But MI-B kept L-BF out of the end zone as the Vikings turned the ball over on downs.
Another L-BF scoring opportunity deep in Ranger territory was also stopped short late in the third quarter.
“Every football game is controlled in the trenches — that’s where you’re going to win or lose ball games, on the line,” Bilben said. “These first three games, and especially (Friday night), we lost that battle. Those (goal-line stands) — that’s the sign of inexperience when you don’t punch those in.”
The Vikings trailed by three touchdowns in the final seconds of the first half with the ball deep in their own territory. But instead of running out the clock for halftime, Tyler Vork recorded an 86-yard touchdown run along the Rangers’ sideline as time ran out. Richie Van Drunen ran in the two-point conversion to cut MI-B’s lead to 21-8 at intermission.
“I thought we were in the ballgame the whole time — we just needed to eliminate the mistakes,” Bilben said. “That was a big play. It could have helped us lift our team — lift the spirits for the second half — but it didn’t quite work out.”
Van Drunen, who led the Vikings in rushing with 141 yards on 21 carried, scored L-BF’s other touchdown on a run of about 35 yards to pull within a touchdown with 11:34 left in the third quarter.
The Vikings, who set up their offense to primarily run the football, rushed for 307 yards in 40 attempts.
It took the Rangers less than a minute to regain their two-touchdown lead. Then the proverbial wind was sucked out of the Vikings’ sails late in the third quarter when they were stopped at MI-B’s two-yard line, where the Rangers needed only one play to run into the opposite end zone.
Injuries hampered L-BF during the second half. Vork left the game with 5:32 remaining in the third quarter after injuring an ankle, while Bryce Burmeister, who rushed for 59 yards on eight carries, also came out of the game.
“When you lose key players like that and you don’t have any depth, it’s really hard to bounce back,” Bilben said.
The Vikings return to action Friday afternoon with a road game against Babbitt-Embarrass. The kickoff time for that game has been changed to 3:15 p.m.
MI-B 14 7 15 14 — 50
L-BF 0 8 6 0 — 14
