Deer River at Mille Lacs

Preview

The Mille Lacs Raiders were denied their first trip to state football as top seed Deer River ekes out an 8-6 win for the Section 7A title.

You could say the game was literally stripped from the hands of the Raiders. The Raider defense held time after time throughout the game with Deer River having a massive field position advantage. It appeared the game was sealed when Wes Harrington picked off a pass with under two minutes to play. Mille Lacs needed to run a few plays with Deer River having all their time outs. However, on the first play of the drive, Deer River stripped running back Carter Adickes of the ball after a big gain and recovered it, giving the Warriors some light. On 4th and goal from the 4 yard line, senior quarterback Caiden Schjenken followed a sea of blue-clad blockers into the end zone with 38 seconds to play to tie the score. The Warriors ran the same play successfully for the two-point conversion to steal the win.

Mille Lacs led 6-0 at the half with a penalty-aided drive capped off by a Sam Hebeisen 7-yard touchdown run.

Offense was extremely difficult to come by for both teams as Deer River had a 173-72 advantage in total yards.

Deer River earns their 16th trip to state, taking a 9-1 record to the quarterfinals. Mille Lacs, who was playing their first section game ever as a co-op (the last appearance for either school was Isle in 2003), finishes the year at 8-3 and will graduate just seven seniors.