skip navigation

Verndale Ends Regular Season 8-0 with Win Over B-E

By Craig Olson, 10/21/21, 4:45PM CDT

Share

The Verndale Pirates won a hard fought Section 4 9-Man football battle with Brandon-Evansville on Wednesday night, prevailing 26-20 over the Chargers.

"What an absolute battle tonight,” commented Brandon-Evansville Head Coach Tim Pattrin.  “Two very good teams went at it and fought till the very end.  We may have lost tonight but we got better because of it.  We will fix our mistakes and get ready for the playoffs!"

Verndale struck first when Gideon Ervasti scored on a 6 yard run and Ben Brownlow added a two-point conversion run for an 8-0 lead in the first quarter.

Brandon-Evansville took a 12-8 lead with a couple of second quarter touchdowns.  The first game with 6:30 remaining when Tyler Bitzan broke free for a 58 yard run to cut the Pirates lead to 8-6.  Thirty seconds later, Bitzan scored on a two yard run to put the Chargers ahead at 12-8.  Verndale responded with a two yard TD run by Brownlow with 1:30 remaining in the half and the Pirates led 14-12 at the intermission.

A 3 yard run by Ervasti with 8:30 left in the third quarter increased the Verndale lead to 20-12 and another 3 yard TD run by Ervasti brought the lead to 14 points at 26-12 with 9 minutes left in the game.   B-E closed the margin to 26-20 when Titus Fuller connected with Carter White on a 7 yard touchdown pass and Fuller then carried the ball into the end zone for the two-point conversion.

Verndale finished with 309 yards of offense, 296 on the ground.  Ervasti ran for 226 yards on 39 attempts and Brownlow had 64 rushing yards on 16 carries.

Brandon-Evansville had 154 yards of total offense (132 rushing, 22 passing).  Bitzan led B-E with 65 rushing yards on 16 tires and Fuller added 45yards on 7 carries.  John Roers led the Chargers defense with 13.5 tackles (7 solo, 13 assisted).  Fuller and Logan Haburn each had 6 tackles (2 solo, 8 assisted).

Verndale (8-0) received the top seed in Section 4 9-Man and will host Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley in a quarterfinal round playoff game on Tuesday night at 6:00pm.  Brandon-Evansville (4-4) is the number four seed and they will entertain Bertha-Hewitt on Tuesday night.