Class 8A football playoffs: Cass Lake-Bena hosts LOW today

The Class 8A football playoffs begin today and Cass Lake-Bena will have the home-field advantage for its opener against Lake of the Woods.

CL-B earned the third seed and will take a 3-5 record into the 7 p.m. game. Lake of the Woods is 2-6. Earlier this fall the Panthers, who ended their regular season last Wednesday with a 36-6 victory over Walker-Hackensack-Akeley-Laporte, defeated LOW 37-12 in Cass Lake.

Blackduck is ranked eighth in Section 8A and will head to No. 1 Fertile-Beltrami tonight. The Drakes lost their regular season finale 55-6 last week to Bagley and are 0-8. Fertile-Beltrami is 6-2.

The other first-round matchups see No. 4 Red Lake County hosting No. 5 Northern Freeze and No. 7 Fosston visiting No. 2 Warren-Alvarado-Oslo.

Today’s winners advance to Saturday’s semifinals.

In Section 8-2A Bagley (7-1) is ranked fourth and will host No. 5 Dilworth-GF 6 p.m. today. The other upper-bracket game has top-rated Hawley hosting No. 8 United North Central.

In the lower bracket No. 3 Warroad entertains No. 6 Frazee and seventh-ranked Pelican Rapids visits second-rated Barnesville.

The Section 8 Nine-Man playoffs also open tonight and sixth-ranked Clearbrook-Gonvick travels to No. 3 Climax-Fisher.

That winner will head to No. 2 Goodridge-Grygla-Gatzke on Saturday. Today’s other game sees No. 4 Badger-Greenbush-Middle River hosting No. 5 Stephen-Argyle.

That survivor will visit top-ranked Kittson Central on Saturday.

Kelliher-Northome, which defeated Nevis 28-14 last week and finished the regular season with a 5-3 record, earned the third seed in Section 7 Nine-Man football and entertains North Range today.

Other games see North Woods (No. 1) hosting Littlefork-Big Falls (No. 8), Ely (No. 4) entertaining MIB (No. 5) and Bigfork (No. 2) hosting Chisholm (No. 7).

The winners play Saturday.

The Section 8A volleyball tournament begins Thursday at the homes of the higher seeds and the rankings, which will be based on the QRF ratings, will be determined later this week.

As the week begins Lake of the Woods (16-11) holds the top spot in the East Sub-Section. Trailing the leader are Fosston (16-11-1), Walker-Hackensack-Akeley (18-6), Cass Lake-Bena (10-11), Clearbrook-Gonvick (6-16), Mahnomen (6-20), Laporte (9-12), Kelliher-Northome (7-10), Blackduck (5-16), Red Lake (4-8), Indus (0-14) and Bug O Nay Ge Shig (3-5).

In 8-2A, Bagley currently is rated eighth according to the QRF rankings.