Flatley leads Rock Ridge past Cloquet, 18-15

VIRGINIA—With their starting quarterback out for the season and his backup sidelined due to injury as well, there were plenty of questions surrounding the Rock Ridge football team this week as they prepared for Friday night’s game with Cloquet.

Levi Flatley earned the starting job for the Wolverines and decided he was going to answer those questions. Using his legs to find the end zone three times, the senior led Rock Ridge to their second victory of the season, taking down the Lumberjacks 18-15 on Raduenz Field at Rock Ridge High School.

Seven days earlier, just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Wolverines in their game with Grand Rapids, namely losing starting QB Caz Carlson to injury. Finding a way to put everything back together in a week’s worth of practice felt well earned for the team according to head coach Brandon Borich.

“It feels great,” Borich said after the win. “We’ve been in so many close games where it’s just gone the opposite way and things just didn’t fall in our favor and finally we got one. The kids earned it. I’m happy for them.

“With the amount of adversity and bad news that we faced in the last week, they deserve this. They deserved it for a long time and I’m proud of them.”

Despite the eventual win, it was not smooth sailing for Rock Ridge early on in the game. On his first play at quarterback, Flatley was picked off by Cloquet corner Jack Battaglia, putting the Lumberjacks at midfield.

The Wolverines found a way to stop the ‘Jacks and turn the ball over on downs, but their ensuing offensive possession was also short lived when Flatley fumbled and lost the ball on the second play of the drive.

The Rock Ridge defense bailed out the offense once more when Cloquet quarterback James Wilmot fumbled at the Wolverine 15. Rock Ridge’s Jack Stella recovered the fumble and the Wolverines could give the offense another try.

With Monday’s practice essentially being an open competition to find the team’s next quarterback, Borich didn’t expect things to go perfect on Friday night.

“You’re gonna have mistakes. It felt like week one for us and week one is all about who can make less mistakes and who can win that turnover battle. We had to find a way to keep things a little bit closer and be a little bit safer with the ball. We know we can play good defense so if we can take care of the ball we’ll take care of business. We needed the right guy to step up and I think we found a few of those guys tonight.”

A run from Connor Morcom and two runs from Flatley gave the Wolverines their first first down of the night as they started their drive. Flatley completed a 13-yard pass to Jake Neari before Beau Akerson ran for nine yards to put Rock Ridge at midfield to end the first quarter.

Sophomore Jacob Coombe came in at quarterback for the Wolverines in the second quarter and, after Rock Ridge pushed themselves back a fair distance, converted on a third-and-29 play when he found an open Neari.

Thirty-seven yards out, Flatley took the next handoff from Coombe and broke free, racing to the end zone for the score to put his team on top, 6-0.

After all the shakeup from the week prior, finally getting in the end zone allowed Rock Ridge to take a breath.

“Any time you score, it’s big,” Borich said. “When you lose a leader like Caz and lose [backup] Bryson [Borich], you’re just looking around for answers. That was the answer we were looking for, something that was positive for us and we had to build off of that.”

The teams traded punts following the score and the Wolverines turned Cloquet over on downs with just over a minute to play on the possession after that, taking over at their own 48. Instead of settling for the 6-0 lead, Rock Ridge wanted to make something happen with the time they had left on the clock.

Unfortunately for them, that decision came back to bite them as a pass from Coombe was intercepted by Blair Chartier, who ran it all the way back to the Wolverine 14. Rock Ridge held Cloquet as long as they could, but Wilmot broke through for the one-yard score just before time expired in the half. Kicker Max Sundquist nailed the extra point and Cloquet made the Wolverines pay dearly as they went into the break leading 7-6.

“That was that inexperience,” Borich said on the late interception. It’s something we’ve had to battle all season, including tonight. We didn’t want to lay down and take a knee to end the half and we thought we had a good shot on a play that ended up going the opposite way. We didn’t execute and those things are going to happen with young quarterbacks. That’s something we have to learn from and get better at.”

Trailing by one, the game was up for grabs with 24 minutes to play. The last two quarters would be all about who could take advantage of the other’s mistakes.

“We’re in it. It’s a battle. We had to keep looking at what they were giving us and keep moving the ball on offense. Defensively, I thought we did a great job and we just needed to be a little bit quicker.”

The Lumberjacks got the ball to start the second half but could only dive 10 yards before they had to punt it away.

With Rock Ridge taking over at their own 46 and Flatley back in at quarterback, it was one explosive play that shifted the momentum back in favor of the Wolverines. Taking the snap from the shotgun, Flatley faked the handoff to Neari and took it up the left side, breaking free for the 54-yard score that put Rock Ridge on top 12-7.

After the Wolverine defense turned Cloquet over on downs once again on the following possession, Rock Ridge was able put together another successful scoring drive to increase their lead.

A 13-yard run from Neari put the Wolverines into Cloquet territory. After Flatley was stuffed for no gain at the 39, he called his own number again and this time raced for 38 yards before being stopped just short of the score at the one-yard line.

After scoring runs of 37 and 54 yards, one yard was nothing for the senior as he kept it himself on the ensuing play and rushed in for the one-yard touchdown run, 18-7 Rock Ridge.

Cloquet found the end zone for the second and final time on the evening with Wilmot connecting with Battaglia for a 13-yard score with just over three minutes remaining. Jack Horvat ran in the two-pointer to make it a three-point game, 18-15.

Coming up without a first down on their ensuing drive, Rock Ridge was forced to punt it away after the Lumberjacks burned through all three of their timeouts. Will Kemp punted the ball away and Cloquet took over on their own 38 with 2:35 to play.

With no timeouts, the Lumberjacks had to go through the air if they wanted to get into field goal position. Wilmot found Brady Wedin for a short gain but couldn’t connect with Battaglia on second down to make it third-and-four.

On the ensuing play, Aiden Bird and Kemp collaborated for the sack and erased all of the ‘Jacks progress. Wilmot looked for Wedin again on fourth down near the line to gain, but the ball was just out of reach as the Wolverines turned Cloquet over on downs for the fifth and final time.

After that, it was an easy couple of kneel downs for Rock Ridge as they ran out the clock and secured the win, 18-15. On the final drive, Borich gave credit to Cloquet and their receiver Battaglia for giving Rock Ridge some trouble all night.

“He’s a great receiver. He had the nice touchdown for them and he’s just a great athlete. Cloquet has some great players and they’re well coached. We’re trying to take him away at the end and they don’t have much time so it was about keeping them inbounds and keeping everything in front of us. We knew what we needed to do and we did it.”

Finishing with the three touchdowns, Flatley was without a doubt the man of the night for the Wolverines. Borich said Flatley was the player who best embodies the “next man up” mentality.

“He was excited to get out there tonight. Last week when Caz went down he said ‘I can play quarterback,’ and I had never heard him say that before. When one guy goes down, we’re a big family and the next guy steps up. Someone has to take that spot. No disrespect to our injured players but we want to honor them by playing tough and that’s what we did tonight. We honored them by coming out and getting the win against Cloquet.”

After a week of chaos, Rock Ridge will greatly appreciate the forthcoming week of practice as they look to return players from the concussion protocol. Preparing for a road trip to Hermantown next Friday, they’ll take all the time they can in order to make things a bit smoother.

“Last week, just about anything that could possibly go wrong felt like it did go wrong for us. We had to piecemeal a game together and lost by one touchdown to a very good football team. This week, we didn’t get any of those guys back and now we’re looking at potentially getting some of them back.

“Those guys are weapons that will help us offensively and we just have to keep building on that side of the ball. They’ll be big on defense too. We had two very good corners out and we had guys like Rory Scuffy and Jake Coombe playing in those spots and they stepped up big for us tonight as well.”

“The good thing about tonight is that we took some big steps but we also got the win. It feels good to have a win on your home f

ield. These guys deserve it.”

CHS 0 7 0 8—15

RR 0 6 12 0—18

First Quarter

No scoring.

Second Quarter

R: Levi Flatley 37 run (kick failed)

C: James Wilmot 1 run (Max Sundquist kick)

Third Quarter

R: Flatley 54 run (pass failed)

R: Flatley 1 run (run failed)

Fourth Quarter

C: Jack Battaglia 13 pass from Wilmot (Jack Horvat run)

ML-WR 41,

Mesabi East 6

WILLOW RIVER—The Mesabi East football team had no answer for the potent offense of Moose Lake/Willow River on Friday as the Giants fell 41-6.

Micah Thompson had three rushing touchdowns for the Rebels while Parker Samarzia had two. Levi Mikrot tacked on one more from the ground in the fourth quarter.

Quarterback Landon Luke connected with Lincoln LaValley for a 54-yard score in the third quarter but that was as good as it got for the Giants.

Luke finished the game 12-27 through the air for 153 yards.

The loss drops the Giants to 2-2 on the season. They’ll host Greenway/Nashwauk-Keewatin next Friday at 7 p.m.

MLWR 20 8 6 7—41

ME 0 0 6 0—6

First Quarter

ML: Parker Samarzia 2 run (run fails)

ML: Micah Thompson 15 run (Charlie Rigelman run)

ML: Thompson 57 run (pass fails)

Second Quarter

ML: Thompson 5 run (Thompson run)

Third Quarter

ME: Lincoln LaValley 54 pass from Landon Luke (run fails)

ML: Samarzia 15 run (pass fails)

Fourth Quarter

ML: Levi Mikrot 4 run (Samarzia kick)

Chisholm 28,

Ely 16

ELY—The Chisholm football team picked up their first win of the season on Friday, traveling to Ely and taking down the Timberwolves 28-16.

No further information was provided to the Mesabi Tribune.

Ely (1-3) travels to Braham next Friday while Chisholm (1-3) is set to host Deer River that same night.

MI-B 88,

Case Lake-Bena 6

CASS LAKE—The Mountain Iron-Buhl football team put up 66 first-half points on Friday night on their way to a 88-6 win over Cass Lake-Bena.

Quarterback MiCaden Clines had three first-quarter rushing touchdowns with running back Derik Dahl running in three overall in the first half. Evan Rossi finished with three touchdowns—one through the air and two on the ground—as well.

TJ DuChamp ran in a 52-yard score in the second quarter and Evan Anderson picked up a fumble recovery and ran it back five yards to put up six more.

Mountain Iron-Buhl (4-0) hosts Kelliher/Northome on Friday.

MIB 28 38 14 8—88

CLB 0 0 0 6—6

First Quarter

M: MiCaden Clines 5 run (Clines run)

M: Derik Dahl 45 run (pass failed)

M: Clines 2 run (run failed)

M: Clines 50 run (Dahl run)

Second Quarter

M: TJ DuChamp 52 run (pass failed)

M: Caleb Rossi 11 pass from Clines (Dahl run)

M: Dahl 2 run (Clines run)

M: Evan Anderson 5 fumble recovery (Noah Berrini pass from Clines)

M: Dahl 21 run (Rossi run)

Third quarter

M: Rossi 70 run (run failed)

M: Rossi 14 run (Jeff Tanksley run)

Fourth Quarter

C: Kingsley Whitebird 10 run (pass failed)

M: Tanksley 40 run (Finley Isaacson run)

GIRLS’ TENNIS

Bemidji 5,

Rock Ridge 2

BEMIDJI—The Rock Ridge girls’ tennis team suffered a road loss on Friday 5-2 to Bemidji.

The Wolverines grabbed one win each in both singles and doubles. At the No. 1 singles spot, Rock Ridge’s Mayme Scott cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Elena Peterson At second doubles, Mattie Seppi and Emmi Peterson had little issue winning 6-1, 6-1 over Ava Myhre and Ruby McKeon.

At first doubles, Ayla Troutwine and Nina Paulsen fell in a three-settter, but all other matches for the Wolverines were lost in straight sets.

The Wolverines return home on Tuesday when they host Duluth East. That match is set to start at 4 p.m.

Bemidji 5, Rock Ridge 2

Singles: No. 1 Mayme Scott, RR, def. Elena Peterson 6-2, 6-1; No. 2 Liz Peterson, B, def. Alli Fink 6-4, 6-1; No. 3 Lilly Caron, B, def. Ellie Dimberio 6-4, 6-3; No. 4 Bailey Rupp, B, def. Alice Johnson 6-0, 6-4.

Doubles: No. 1 Megan Berg/Sam Woods, B, def. Ayla Troutwine/Nina Paulsen 2-6, 6-4, [11-9]; No. 2 Mattie Seppi/Emmi Peterson, RR, def. Ava Myhre/Ruby McKeon 6-1, 6-1; No. 3 Millie Ionolt/Zoey McNayan, B, def. Ava Dahl/Kiri Milos 6-4, 6-3.