September 29, 2016 at 3:00 p.m.
North Branch finally scores, still falls at homecoming to Big Lake 34-25
North Branch finally scores, still falls at homecoming to Big Lake 34-25
That changed midway through the first quarter and while the Vikings stayed with the Big Lake Hornets throughout the game, they couldn’t find a way to get their first win of the year.
The first possession for NB was a fruitless one. They went three and out after two negative runs on first and second down. The Hornets didn’t take long to sting after that, taking only four plays to score a touchdown. The big one came on a 35 yard run by junior running back Deon Harris. Senior running back Tanner Teige, who ran roughshod over the Vikings last year, finished the drive with a 10-yard touchdown run.
North Branch’s second possession looked very similar to their game against Chisago Lakes the week prior. After going backwards and facing a fourth and long, a bad snap sailed over the punters head and Big Lake took over on North Branch’s 25 yard line.
The Viking defense did force Big Lake into a third and 15 from the 18 yard line, but they gave up an 18 yard touchdown pass on the play, a frustrating result for a promising down and distance.
On their third possession of the game, the Vikings got their passing game moving. That wasn’t a shock, as they had moved the ball well against both Grand Rapids and Chisago Lakes, the surprise came when they were able to finish the drive, something they hadn’t done prior.
Aaron Robillard to Darien Fair was the highlight reel on the scoring drive. Robillard opened the drive by hitting Fair for a 12 yard gain. On third and 13, the senior quarterback hit Fair for a 39 yard gain down to Big Lake’s 16 yard line.
The redzone had proved to be a Roubik’s Cube-type puzzle for the Vikings until this point. After two short runs by James Peltier, Robillard hit Fair for a 15 yard touchdown. Soccer player Dawson Linkert knocked the extra point through to trim the lead to 14-7.
Teige, however, promptly answered back, ripping off gains of 12 yards, five yards, 21 yards and 28 yards en route to a Hornet score, putting the lead back to 14 at 21-7.
Robillard’s arm got North Branch right back in the game on the next drive, though. He hit Conner Hartmann and Josiah Hall for big gains early in the drive, and then came back to Hartmann for a 21 yard gain to put the Vikings on Big Lake’s two yard line. From there, Robillard called his own number, punching it in from two yards out to get NB back within a score at 20-13.
Harris and Teige would not allow the game to be evened up, though, combining for a long touchdown drive that Teige finished off to put Big Lake up 27-13.
With less than three minutes to go in the half, it looked like that might be the score at halftime but North Branch’s suddenly hot offense had other ideas. On third and eight from midfield, Robillard hit junior Evan Amunrud for a 48 catch-and-run touchdown with 54 seconds left in the half. They went for two points, but failed, leaving them down 27-19.
Big Lake wasn’t happy with their offensive output yet, so they attempted two passes on their first two downs, and both were incomplete. They decided to run on third down, and North Branch snuffed it out and called a timeout of their own to try to get another score before halftime.
Although they only had the ball at their own 30, they went to the air with 29 seconds left. The first play was a trick play that had running back Micah Hindt throwing the ball. He tossed an interception that could’ve been disastrous, but a roughing the passer penalty put North Branch near midfield. On the next play, Big Lake committed pass interference, another 15 yard mistake, putting the Vikes on Big Lake’s 40 yard line with only 19 seconds left. From there, Robillard threw two straight incompletions before throwing a hail mary on third down that was picked off by Big Lake near the goal line.
The Vikings were only down one score at halftime, but the Hornets were to receive the second half kickoff, and they knew exactly what to do with it. Again, they used a heavy dose of Harris and Teige, and Teige again hit paydirt from 11 yards out, putting Big Lake up 34-19.
North Branch’s offense needed to keep pace, but Robillard made one of his few mistakes of the day on the ensuing drive, throwing an interception at midfield.
The defense picked him up, though, when they forced a fumble just three plays later.
However, North Branch’s inability to finish reared it’s ugly head again. Peltier ripped off a 37 yard run that was followed by 14 yards of running by Hindt. The Vikings had first and goal from the eight yard line but they had an incomplete pass on first down, a two yard run on second down, an incomplete pass on third down and a two yard pass on fourth down.
North Branch figured at least they had the Hornets pinned back in the shadow of their own end zone, but Teige blasted through the line for a 12 yard gain to give them some breathing room.
The ensuing drive was an absolute backbreaker for the Vikings. Big Lake didn’t score, but they went 17 plays and used nine minutes and 15 seconds of game time before stalling out on a fourth and two on North Branch’s 16 yardline.
North Branch moved as quick as possible down the field when they took over, and capped off the drive with a 34 yard touchdown pass from Robillard to Hall. It took just over two minutes off the clock. Unfortunately, the two point conversion went awry, leaving the Vikings down by two scores at 34-25.
Big Lake recovered Linkert’s onside kick and they earned a first down, which allowed them to take a knee to end the game at that score.
There were some gaudy statlines in the high-scoring game, headlined by Teige’s 294 yards and four touchdowns on 39 carries. That gives the senior running back 531 yards and eight touchdowns in his last two matchups with North Branch. The Vikings sure will be glad to see him graduate after this year.
Robillard ended 16-of-26 for 254 and three touchdowns and also had 44 rushing yards and a score on the ground. Peltier had 75 rushing yards on 14 carries.
Four NB receivers, including Fair, Hall, Amunrud and Hartmann had over 45 yards receiving.
The Vikings will be in the hunt for their first win of the year when they travel to Duluth East this Friday night to take on the 0-4 Greyhounds. North Branch has typically had success against East, but they did lose to them last year. The Hounds aren’t stopping anyone on defense, giving up an average of 40 points per game, but they are scoring, averaging nearly 30 points a game.
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