Bagley, Blackduck, Pine River football in three-way tie

BAGLEY — Bagley will try to maintain its share of the Northstar East Conference football lead Friday when it visits Red Lake in a 4 p.m. contest.

Heading into this week’s action the Flyers share 2-1 overall and league records with Blackduck and Pine River. Pillager is 1-2 while Red Lake and Walker-Hackensack-Akeley are 0-3.

Bagley is coming off last week’s 49-12 victory over WHA. Blackduck also was victorious last Friday as the Drakes downed Red Lake 56-0. In last week’s other Northstar East contest, Pine River edged Pillager 21-18.

In the win over WHA, Colton Adams gave Bagley a 6-0 lead when he recovered a fumble and returned it for a touchdown. The Wolves answered with a touchdown later in the period and the teams were knotted at 6-6 after 12 minutes.

Bagley, however, took charge with 30 points in the second stanza. Sparking the spurt was Walker Cage who scored on an 80-yard run. On Bagley’s next defensive series they blocked a punt and Nate Rolfson returned it for a touchdown.

Rolfson scored on a 2-yard run with 1:11 to play in the half and WHA mishandled the ensuing kickoff. Bagley turned the mistake into another TD when Christian Larson caught a 34-yard pass from Cage in the end zone.

The play gave the Flyers a 36-12 lead at the break and they cemented the win with two more touchdowns in the second half.

In the third quarter Jordan Loiland hit Ben Thoma with a 3-yard TD pass and Rolfson capped the victory with his third TD run of the evening.

Cage gained 105 yards on five rushes and Larson caught two passes for 67 yards.

In the Great Northern Conference, Kelliher-Northome tripped Nevis 14-12 in overtime last week to improve to 2-1. Leading the conference with 3-0 records are Cromwell and Wrenshall while joining the Mustangs at 2-1 are Floodwood, Isle, Nevis and Onamia.

Kelliher-Northome is home Friday for a 7:30 p.m. game against Lake of the Woods.

Cass Lake-Bena is still searching for its initial victory and hopes to find it Friday when it visits Norman County East. The Panthers dropped to 0-3 last week with a 43-0 loss to Park Christian while NCE improved to 2-1 overall and 1-1 in the league with a 62-0 win over Rothsay.

Clearbrook-Gonvick is one game off the pace in the Top of the State Conference standings with a 1-1 league mark. The Bears fell 48-16 last week to Stephen-Argyle and dropped to 2-1 overall.

On Friday they will visit Goodridge-Grygla which is 1-2.

Volleyball

Laporte began the week with a 3-1 record in the Northland Conference and a 5-1 overall mark and trailed only Nevis and WHA which both owned 1-0 league records.

Cass Lake-Bena was 1-1 in the conference while Northome-Kelliher was 1-2, Blackduck 0-1 and Red Lake 0-2.

Today’s schedule sees Northome-Kelliher traveling to Blackduck, Bigfork visiting Cass Lake-Bena, WHA heading to Clearbrook-Gonvick, Laporte hosting Menahga and Indus entertaining Red Lake.

In Pine to Prairie play, Bagley is 0-2 after falling 25-19, 25-15, 25-9 last week to Climax-Fisher. In that match Sierrah Kaiser had seven kills and a block, Sara Holm contributed five kills, Liz Anderson delivered four winners and Cassie Keough dished 12 assists.

Overall the Flyers were 1-4 heading into this week. On Saturday they will host Win-E-Mac and on Saturday they will participate in the Hill City Invitational. Tuesday finds the Flyers back at home to take on Fertile-Beltrami.