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After the first two minutes when Cherry scored a touchdown and two-point conversion, the Vikings defense shut down the mighty Cherry offense the rest of the way to take the win and up their record to 5-2. Photo courtesy of Jamie Rex
The 5-2 Cook County Vikings hosted the 3-3 Bigfork Huskies on Tuesday, October 26, in an exciting Section 7 nine-man football playoff game.
Behind their running game, Bigfork started hot, scoring a touchdown on the first series to take a 6-0 lead. However, the Huskies missed their two-point conversion. It only took a minute or so for the Huskies to score its second touchdown following a fumble on the kickoff when Amos Falter was stripped of the ball. The Huskies used three plays to punch in its second touchdown and once again failed to convert the two-point conversion to take a 12-0 lead with less than four minutes gone off the game clock.
Down 12-0, the Vikings were in a hole they couldn’t have foreseen coming into the game.
The Vikings got on the scoreboard early in the second quarter on the run by Ray Dressely. Behind some excellent blocking by his line, Ray darted through the middle of the field to score from five yards out. Dressely also ran in the two-point conversion to make the score 12-8.
Somewhere beneath the pile is Viking running back Ray Dressely who scored a touchdown on the play. Staff photo Brian Larsen
After stopping the Huskies on the next series, the Vikings got the ball back and behind runs from Paul Dorr, Dressely and Kole Anderson, brought the ball down to the Cherry six. Following Kole Anderson and his blockers, Dressely ran through a nice hole for a touchdown. The conversion run failed and the Viking’s led 14-12.
Once again, the Viking’s defense held and with time winding down the Vikings got the ball back. With about 30 seconds to go in the half Viking quarterback Paul Dorr threw a two-yard strike to Amos Falter in the corner of the endzone. Dorr followed with a pass to Amos for the two-point conversion to make the score 22-12 at the half.
Neither team did much on offense in the third quarter until Paul Dorr faked a hand-off to Dressely and found Ryan Christiansen open, hitting him with a long throw that covered 60-yards for an easy touchdown. The Vikings failed on the two point try, but the fans started to breathe easier with the Viking’s lead now 28-12 and the team’s headed into the fourth quarter.
Fourth-quarter action by the Huskies changed the complexion of the game. Using three or four counter plays—something the Huskies hadn’t used in the first three quarters— the Huskies scored a quick touchdown. The Huskies quarterback Caden Kaliinen carried for two points to make it 28-20. After stopping the Vikings, the Huskies went right back to running counters, scoring again to make it 28-26, but once again failed to convert on the two-point try.
With 2:49 on the clock, the Huskies’ defense stopped the Vikings on a fourth and one, and the Huskies’ offense took over on the Viking’s 29-yard line. Two plays later, the Huskies running back fumbled, and the Vikings recovered. At that point, the Viking’s quarterback Paul Dorr took knees to end the game.
Only two penalties were called over four quarters of play. With the win, the Vikings moved on in the playoffs, and a pretty good Huskies team headed home after giving the Vikings everything they could want in an exciting night of high school playoff football.
The Vikings traveled to play the number one seed Mountain Iron-Buhl on Saturday in Mountain Iron.
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