By Bill Morgan, Staff Writer
Coming off a devastating home loss to Hwy. 10 rival Big Lake last Friday, the Becker Bulldog football team hopes to rebound with a big win over Brainerd Saturday on the road.
Head Coach Dwight Lundeen was disheartened after Friday’s Homecoming game in which Big Lake escaped with a 21-18 win. He focused on some mistakes (fumbles) as being a big part of the loss, but the worst part was him seeing his quarterback go down.
Josh Fobbe was removed from the game in the second quarter after injuring his knee. He begged his coaches to let him continue to play, but after re-inserting him, the staff decided to not take any more chances.
“Without Josh, our offense really struggled,” said Lundeen. “If he had played up to his ability for a full game, we would have won that game.”
It was learned later, Fobbe suffered an injury to his LCL (lateral collateral ligament). The LCL is a ligament of thick, strong bands of tissue located in the knee joint.
The Bulldogs are 2-3 and will face the 2-3 Brainerd Warriors at 2 p.m. Saturday in Brainerd. Becker has beat Princeton (54-14) and Rocori (27-22) and lost to Big Lake (21-18), Hutchinson (34-21) and Chisago Lakes (21-19).
Brainerd has beaten Alexandria (36-7) and Sauk Rapids-Rice (34-14) and lost to Buffalo (38-28), St. Cloud Tech (32-26) and Bemidji (12-7).
Brainerd is led by a trio of quarterbacks — Sam Miller, Joe Klang and Brady Anderson. Miller plays the majority of the time and has four TDs and seven interceptions.
At RB, the Warriors feature Ben Staehling and Davon Stuckey, who have each played in all five games. Staehling has 269 yards on 55 carries and four TDs. Stuckey has 77 yards on 15 carries with no TDs.
At WR, the Brainerd quarterbacks look to Owen Davis, Gabe Smith and Pat Gervenak. Davis has 110 yards in four games and one TD while Smith has 112 yards in four games and one TD and Gervenak has 249 yards in three games and one TD.
On defense, Brainerd’s big guns are Davis, Jacob Drietz and Brady Anderson.
The game is scheduled for the weekend due to Brainerd celebrating their Homecoming on Saturday instead of Friday.
