Frazee to travel to Warroad on Friday night

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

Brady Crabtree scored a pair of second half touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough as the Frazee Hornets came just short of its upset bid over Staples-Motley 21-14 on Friday, Sept. 1. 

Following a scoreless first half, the Cardinals took a 14-0 lead thanks to a pair of rushing touchdowns in the third quarter.

Crabtree put the Hornets on the scoreboard with a 17-yard run late in the third quarter and the subsequent kick was good to cut Staples-Motley lead to 14-7. 

The Cardinals gave themselves a bit of breathing room early in the fourth quarter when they connected on a 20-yard touchdown pass to make the score 21-7 in favor of Staples-Motley. 

Crabtree found the end zone for the second time later in the fourth quarter on a 5-yard run to cut the lead to 21-14. Unfortunately, Frazee could get no closer as they fell to the Cardinals by a score of 21-14. 

As a team, Crabtree led the way with 22 carries for 140 yards and a pair of touchdowns, while Tyler Moe finished with 9 carries for 18 yards. 

Carter Sonnenberg was a perfect 2-2 for 23 yards passing, while Asher Blaine was on the receiving end of 2 passes for 22 yards to lead the Frazee pass catchers. 

Both teams played well defensively on Sept. 1 as the Hornets gave up just 256 yards of total offense, with 195 yards of those yards being on the ground. Frazee accumulated 187 yards of total offense with 155 yards coming on the ground. 

On Friday night the Hornets defeated Crookston by a score of 41-0 to improve to 1-2 on the season at Moorhead High School. 

Prior to the game, head coach Russ Hackel said the team and coaching staff got back to the basics in order to clean up some mistakes on the offensive and defensive end of the field. In their game against Hawley, Hackel said the Hornets had a few costly turnovers that proved to be the difference and was a focal point in practice leading up to Friday’s game. 

“We executed really well on Friday night,” said Hackel. “This last week in practice we went back to the basics and worked on what we need to be good at.”

One of the big differences was getting in full pads and having more live contact in practice leading up to Friday’s contest against Crookston, something Hackel said the coaches and players expressed an interest in continuing to do leading up to their game on Friday in Warroad. 

“We are going back to full pads and we are getting after it,” said Hackel.

While individual and team stats were not available at the time of press due to an issue with Frazee’s stats program, Hackel said the Hornets had over 300 yards of total offense. The team was led by Crabtree who had over 200 yards of offense himself in the win.

This week the Hornets will travel to the Canadian border as they will take on the Warroad Warriors. Both teams come into the game with a record of 1-2 overall. 

Last week the Warriors fell to Park Rapids by a score of 49-13. They also fell to Pelican Rapids by a score of 48-0 on Sept. 7 and defeated St. Cloud Cathedral by a score of 24-22 on Sept. 1. They come into the game averaging 12.3 points per game on offense and give up 39.7 points per game on defense.

The Hornets are averaging 20.3 points per game on offense and are surrendering just 15.7 points per game on defense. 

PASSING: C. Sonnenberg 2-2-23-0-0, A. Vigen 1-3-9-0-0

RUSHING: B. Crabtree 22-140-2, T. Moe 9-18-0, A. Vigen 2-7-0, C. Nagel 2-4-0, C. Sonnenberg 2-14-0

RECEIVING: A. Blaine 2-22, B. Crabtree 1-10

DEFENSE: T. Moe 6-1, A. Blaine 6-1, B. Crabtree 3-3, D. Zitzow 3-0, C. Sonnenberg 2-0, A. Vigen 2-0, A. Aho 2-0, D. Mekalson 1-0, C. Nagel 1-0, T. Moe 1-1, J. Graham 1-1, W. Mickelson 1-1, J. Rollins 1-0, L. Brekke 0-1