Don't judge a team by its record, at least that's what Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg is thinking about Lake of the Woods when the teams meet in the quarterfinals of the state Class A football tournament at 8 p.m. today at the Fargodome.
The Bears sport a 7-4 record while the Fighting Saints are 11-0.
"One of the things is their four losses came without their starting quarterback. They're undefeated with him in the game," said KMS coach James Cortez, who is in his second state tournament. "He's gotten them on a pretty good roll. They came back to beat Fertile-Beltrami and Badger-Greenbush. Any team that makes the state tournament is a quality team. The motivation comes from wanting to do bigger and better things than just getting to the state tournament."
Lake of the Woods lost starting senior quarterback Peder Beckstrand for a string of four games from Sept. 28 until the start of the playoffs on Oct. 23. In his first game back against Fosston in the Section 8A quarterfinals, Beckstrand led the Bears to a 30-22 overtime win. In the next round against Fertile-Beltrami, he threw for 93 yards, rushed for two touchdowns and added an interception on defense in a 19-13 win. His best passing game was in the section championship game, where he completed 9-of-12 passes for 127 yards and a touchdown in a 15-6 victory over Badger/Greenbush-Middle River.
But Lake of the Woods is a predominantly rushing team. Senior running back Blake Bjork has averaged 96 yards over the last three games with three TDs. Another senior running back, Jake Beckel has 64 yards a game in the playoffs with three TDs.
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"They're primarily a running team and they like to pound it," said Cortez. "They took advantage of turnovers against Fertile-Beltrami and Badger-Greenbush. It looks like they are very opportunistic. It's a different game than Dawson-Boyd. They stay pretty tight and try to beat you in the fourth quarter."
The Fighting Saints will try to get off to a quick start offensively, much like they did against Dawson-Boyd in the first half of the Section 5A championship against Dawson-Boyd.
"We also don't want to see the game as close as the Dawson game was. We don't want the game to get tight," Cortez said. "Early in the game, we ran the ball pretty effectively against Dawson-Boyd. Defensively, we took away the passing game, which we felt was a strength."
What KMS doesn't want to do is to turn the ball over, which for a running team, it has done a good job of this year.
"As much as we run the ball, we really haven't put the ball on the ground a lot," Cortez said. "We can live with the interceptions with the types of passes we throw. We've lost only three or four fumbles this season. It's a big part of our game."
The winner will move on to the state semifinals Nov. 15 at the Metrodome.
