From Mark McKenzie
LAMOURE, ND. (NewsDakota.com) – Last year the Lamoure- Litchville-Marion football team lost in the State Semifinals. That wasn’t the case for the 2021 team as the Loboes polished off Bottineau Saturday in LaMoure 20-6.
For just the second time this season, L-M-M trailed in a game. The Braves took advantage of an early Loboe turnover and finished off a 12 play 83-yard drive when Senior Jacob Shriver punched it in from three yards out. The two-point conversion failed but Bottineau had an early 6-0 lead.
L-M-M was not phased as Senior QB Corban Potts connected with Senior Charlie Bowman on a 56 yard TD pass to finish off a four-play 75-yard drive. Potts and Bowman hooked up on the two-point conversion and the Loboes led 8-6 late in the first quarter.
Late in the first half, it was the same combo as Potts hit Bowman on a 22-yard strike that completed an eight-play 52-yard drive to build the lead to 14-6, and that’s where we stood at halftime. Bowman upped his TD catches this season to 12.
L-M-M scored on its opening drive of the second half when Potts found Junior Anthony Hanson on a 27 yard TD pass, as the Loboes went 73 yards in six plays.
Potts has thrown for 28 TD passes this season with only two interceptions.
After that, the offense was hard to come by for either team and the Loboes focused on running clock and kept the Braves off the scoreboard in the second half.
Junior Brady Lettenmaier rushed for 201 yards in the game and continues to put up eye-popping numbers during the postseason. Lettenmaier ran for 185 yards and four touchdowns in the round one 42-0 win over MPCG. He followed that up with 193 yards rushing last week in the round two Loboes 42-22 victory over Grant County Flasher.
Defensively, Sophomore Tate Mart had a monster game with two picks, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. Sophomore Colton Ness came up with two interceptions in the game.
L-M-M advances to the State title game for the first time since 2003 and is looking for it first football championship since 1991.
Head coach Andy DelaBarre celebrated with his players on the field after the game and he had high praise for his team “We have a lot of leaders and experience on this roster and we preached to remain focused each game and we executed that again today against a very good football team.”
The Loboes will take their 11-0 record and #1 ranking to Fargodome for a showdown vs undefeated Cavalier, also 11-0, at 9:10 am Friday, November 12th in the 9-Man state title game. Listen for coverage on Q101 and newsdakota.com.