The Forest Lake football team upended the Stillwater Ponies in an overtime thriller on Friday night, as the Rangers came away with a narrow, but important 27-21 homecoming win on Sept. 27. The Ponies entered the game ranked as the No. 6 team in the Class 6A state rankings according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, but Forest Lake orchestrated 413 total yards of offense to improve to 3-2 and ultimately defeat Stillwater for the first time since 2008.
The defense came up big when it was needed most as the Rangers forced a fumble and recorded seven tackles for loss in the timely win. Forest Lake established a potent ground game, as the squad racked up 289 rushing yards thanks to a strong effort from sophomore running back Mack Jurkovich.
It was a surprise upset for some, but Beeskow said he knew his guys could get the win.
“One of our mottos around here is ‘the standard is the standard.’ It doesn’t matter who we match up with or who we play, we expect to do things a certain way and to play a certain way,” Beeskow said. “It obviously all starts up front with playing physical football on both sides of the ball, and I feel like we did a good job in that area. The other thing outside of complementary football, we talk a ton about hidden yardage, and I believe that we won that battle on Friday night. For those phases to all come together into effect, that’s what we expect from the guys every single week.”
The Rangers found themselves down 7-0 early in the first quarter of play, surrendering a 39-yard passing touchdown. But Forest Lake responded in convincing fashion, as Jurkovich ripped off an 80-yard rushing touchdown the very next play to knot the game up at 7-7.
“It means a lot to have the coaches trust me,” Jurkovich said. “I’m happy I’ve been able to deliver on the opportunities I’ve had, and I look forward to the future opportunities they continue to give me. I definitely think [the big play] helped us secure the victory, since we needed every point we could get.”
Forest Lake began to control the game and maintain the momentum following the explosive score, as the Rangers defense earned themselves a stop, setting up for a junior Kevin Ndirangu 18-yard receiving touchdown from junior quarterback Connor Johnson.
With the team leading 14-7, the lead extended even further to 21-7 in the second quarter after Ndirangu found paydirt once again from 7-yards out, as Forest Lake took a two-score lead heading into halftime, its largest advantage against the Ponies in over sixteen years.
“I thought it was really important for us to get off to a good start,” Beeskow said. “We wanted to make it known that we were here to play. We didn’t start great, giving up the early touchdown, but credit to our guys for bouncing back. We did a good job of taking care of the football and taking it from them [in the first half].
“For us to get up 14 points, we felt really good and felt like we had a really good plan to go get the win, but we know that there were a lot of things in the second half that we needed to fix.”
A tale of two halvesThe tide started to change throughout the course of the second half, as the defense allowed a Stillwater 31-yard rushing touchdown midway through the third quarter, with the offense beginning to experience some pressure. The Rangers still owned a 21-14 lead heading into the final frame, but that lead eventually shrank to a tie ball game late in the fourth quarter, when the Ponies capitalized off Forest Lake’s stalled offensive drives and scored their longest play of the night from 41-yards out to knot the game up at 21-21.
“It’s just about adjustments,” Beeskow said. “It’s a back-and-forth battle once a team makes good adjustments against you, but taking care of the ball and playing together is what I thought was most important. We knew we needed to go down and get another score.”
“No matter what happened during the game, we knew we were going to have a chance to go and win it, and they ultimately ended up putting themselves in that position,” he said. “It all comes down to our preparation, so when we get to overtime, we’re able to lean on some of the specific things that we prepared for.”
The late Stillwater touchdown paved the way for the game to ultimately be decided in overtime.
The Rangers defense held the Ponies to a fourth-and-four situation when they opted to go for the touchdown and not kick a field goal. It was on that fourth-and-four that Ethan Lashinski broke up a pass to Ponies’ Chase Edstrom, giving the Rangers the opportunity to score.
After an eight-yard sneak by Ndirangu, quarterback Connor Johnson ultimately wound up putting the game away for the Rangers, as the junior ran in the game-winning score in overtime from two-yards out to cement a Forest Lake homecoming win and its first victory over Stillwater in just over a decade and a half.
Johnson said the victory is “the best feeling in the world.” He added that since Mounds View’s drumming of the Rangers’ on Sept. 13, the squad has worked extremely hard in practices throughout the weeks, with one of the goals being a homecoming victory.
“For us to win this game, it just gives us so much confidence that we can beat anyone as long as we work hard in our preparation and show up ready to play at game time,” Johnson said, adding the team was “beyond grateful” for the fans.
Johnson finished the game with an efficient statline: 9-of-14 passing for 124 yards and a passing touchdown, including 49 yards on the ground to match his game-winning score. Jurkovich racked up 178 yards on 23 rushes and a touchdown.
“We did what we needed to do to keep us in the hunt for a conference championship, and I’m just happy to be able to contribute towards the team’s success,” Jurkovich added.
The Rangers also got plenty of other high profile performances from several other key players on the squad, such as Ndirangu’s 63 yards and two touchdowns, and sophomore Mika Sauvageau’s five catch and 60-yard night. Howie Johnson, the junior and University of Minnesota commit, finished with seven total tackles.
“We have to put teams away in the second half before it gets to a tie game, but we’re obviously excited about the win and the thrills in the way it happened, but we know there’s a lot of things to get better at in order to put teams away earlier,” Beeskow said.
Beeskow further noted what it means to secure not just a crucial homecoming win, but a win over a very tough Class 6A opponent.
“It’s just jubilation, you’re just excited,” he said. “I’m just really, really happy and excited for our guys. They put in so much work and effort, they deserve to have success because of how hard they work and how hard they’re bought into the culture. I’m just super happy for our community as well. We get such good support from our school and our administration, to be able to give those people who support us so much a win over a team like Stillwater is just awesome, especially on homecoming.”
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