FOOTBALL: Bemidji dinged 19-7 as Brainerd rings Babe's Bell for first time
Sep. 24—BRAINERD — For what's sure to be a long, long year, Babe's Bell will be missing.
The Bemidji High School football team surrendered possession of the traveling trophy for the first time on Friday, losing 19-7 at Brainerd and therefore leaving the coveted bell to the rival Warriors.
"Anytime you have a rivalry game, this is a possibility," BHS head coach Bryan Stoffel said. "And when you don't execute or play at a high level — make too many mistakes — this is sometimes the result."
The tradition of Babe's Bell began in 2018, when the Paul Bunyan-sized gong first roamed the sidelines and awaited a winner of the annual clash. The bell itself features both schools' respective shades of blue split down the middle, but it's been all Bemidji on the field.
That is, until Friday.
Brainerd stormed Babe's Bell after the rainy game, hoisting it for the first time and dropping BHS to a frustrating 0-4 this season.
"Obviously kids are hurt, coaches are hurt. It's not very fun on this side of the rivalry loss," Stoffel said. "But hopefully it serves as a launch point for the remainder of our season. What I told the boys is that our ultimate goal is still attainable. We just have to continue to work on improving."
Warrior running back Damien Bentho rushed for two touchdowns and over 200 yards, outgaining the Bemidji offense all on his own. He opened the scoring with a 3-yard TD rush on Brainerd's opening drive, then added the final nail in the coffin with another 3-yard score late in the fourth quarter.
It wasn't all a lost cause, though. The Lumberjacks made a statement early in the second quarter with a blocked punt, which the offense immediately flipped into a 44-yard touchdown pass from Peyton Neadeau to Ethan Biehn on play action as the defense sold out for the run.
"That was a focus of ours this week: improving our play-action pass game," Stoffel said. "We actually got a big play out of it, which is what we were looking to get, so that was nice to see."
The quick-hitter brought the score back to a 7-7 tie, though the Warriors (3-2) answered with Jake Merseth's 15-yard TD reception just before the break for a 13-7 halftime lead.
The Bemidji defense dug in and kept things close from that point on, forcing Brainerd into back-to-back turnovers on downs from inside the red zone and giving the offense a fighting chance. But BHS hardly had any sustained success against the Warrior defense, and it was the latter group that locked down their grip on the Bell.
"We put (the defense) in some tight spots continuously throughout the night," Stoffel said. "They bent, but they didn't break. ... Offensively, we had our chances, too. We just did not execute in the red zone tonight."
The win was Brainerd's first over the Lumberjacks since 2017 and forces BHS into an 0-4 start for the first time since 2005.
"We're starting to see glimmers of what this team could be," Stoffel said. "We're growing as a team on both sides of the football, (and) we were still able to do some of the things we wanted. But what you saw was us not executing and Brainerd doing a nice job of taking some things away from us."
The Jacks will seek their first win of 2022 during homecoming week, as they host Sauk Rapids-Rice at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, at Chet Anderson Stadium.
Brainerd 19, Bemidji 7
BEM 0 7 0 0 — 7
BRD 7 6 0 6 — 19
First quarter — BRD TD, Bentho 3-yard rush (Bernander PAT), 7-0 BRD.
Second quarter — BEM TD, Biehn 44-yard catch from Neadeau (Stanoch PAT), 7-7; BRD TD, Merseth 15-yard catch from Getty (PAT blocked), 13-7 BRD.
Third quarter — No scoring.
Fourth quarter — BRD TD, Bentho 3-yard rush (2-pt. conversion no good), 19-7 BRD.
