We attended two of the semi-final Prowler football games for the Section championship at the Old Prowler Field with the Prowlers running all over East Grand Forks 46-8 and another fun game against Park Rapids Panthers. After the win against Park Rapids a week before last Friday, we clinched the final Section championship berth against Perham, a team the Prowlers played earlier in the season and beat. I picked the boys and their friend, Dorion, up from school on Friday and we drove over to Grand Forks that evening to attend the championship game, which was played at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks. Alerus Center is an indoor events facility that has a football field where the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux play. I think it was our first ever indoor football game and our first "away" game we've attended together. The Prowler side of the bleachers was packed pretty solid with Prowler blue and gold and spirit was really high.
The game was a lot of back and forth, but it didn't take long for Perham High School to score a couple of touchdowns and by half-time, the Perham Yellowjackets were up by a score of 17-6 and they tacked on another touchdown in the second half to make it 24 to 6. The Prowlers had a handful of good plays that resulted in one more touchdown and a successful two-point conversion, which brought them to a final score of 24-14. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on the Prowler's side and they shot themselves in the foot with some foolish penalties including a pair of defense encroachments and worst of all, a roughing the kicker penalty in the last 3:00 minutes of the game that resulted in an automatic first down for Perham whereas otherwise we could have gotten the ball back and a chance at narrowing the gap to at least 24-21. The game was still a great experience for us all, though, and I didn't regret attending one bit.
As we drove home, we were faced with the daunting prospect of the annual deer "obstacle" course with it being the day before opening of deer hunting season. We drove back on Highway 1/59 through Warren, Alvarado, Oslo, etc. in pitch black with the brights on most of the way and we saw no fewer than about 8 deer on the way back, most of them in the ditches. As we were driving back, though, I glanced off to the left and saw this huge long stack of something that from the highway and to an untrained eye looked a lot like a pile of gravel or large rocks. It triggered a memory, though, and I wondered to myself, "Could that be a pile of harvested sugar beets??" They had just a half dozen or so flood lights in the open field area where these giant stacks were the length of a football field and I figured, "Why not?" and pulled into one of the areas and confirmed they were indeed sugar beets, something neither the boys nor their friend Dorion had ever seen in books or anywhere else. Dorion climbed to the top of the pile while we shot some video and he took one of the sugar beets home with us. I think I have a picture of them there somewhere I'll post on here.
About halfway back to Thief River, I was driving along with my eyes peeled for deer when Dorion suddenly shouted "DEER!!!" from the passenger seat next to me and sure enough there was a very young deer, just a little over the size of a fawn that had walked up onto the shoulder of the highway and as I had my brights on, I was able to slam on the brakes in time to watch it turn around and go back from whence it came. It was the smartest deer I've seen, as most will just stand there in the highway or run all the way across. Thanks for the early deer warning system known as Dorion, we made it home safe and sound that night.
With the loss to Perham High Friday night, that was the end of the Prowler season who ended up as runner-up to the new champion Perham team. They finished, though, with about a 9-2 season, so a very successful season despite not making it to the State playoffs. We're looking forward to next year's season for sure given how fun the games were to attend this year. I think we made it to about half or maybe even a little more than half of their games this season, so we're getting pretty interested in the local sports scene.
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