WABASSO — On a beautiful night for football, the Wabasso Rabbits entertained the visiting Russell-Tyler-Ruthton Knights.  Both teams are coming off a season opening loss, with Wabasso losing to MACCRAY and RTR losing to defending State Champion Minneota.  Each team was looking to rebound and put themselves in the win column.  Both teams are a little short on experience, with RTR returning only 8 Seniors, and Wabasso has six returning Seniors, but Senior Preston Reminger suffered a broken arm in practice and is out the season.  However, they do return 16 starters from last season, even though they are a young team.  But the RTR line dominated the Rabbits for the most part, and came away with a 20-7 victory.

RTR kicked off to start the game, and they attempted an on-side, but Garrett Morotzke recovered the ball on the 35 yard line. The RTR line stiffened, forced a couple of tackle for losses and an incompletion, and Wabasso was forced to punt.  RTR got ball back in good field position, but a holding penalty and a couple of incompletions forced RTR to punt.  But on Wabasso’s second play, Liebl fumbled and it was recovered by Gavin DeJesus at the Wabasso 22 yard line.  On the first play from scrimmage, Blake Christianson circled the left end and went untouched into the end zone to give RTR a 6-0 lead.  The extra point was blocked, leaving it at 6-0.

Calvin Hannah returned the kickoff to the 13 yard line, but after a couple of plays that lost yardage, and a short run, Wabasso was again forced to punt.   RTR took over on the 45 yard line, they were able to string together a series of short runs .  After a 14 yard completion from Christianson to Drew Werkman, Christianson again circled the left side for a 9 yard touchdown.  The two point conversion failed, but RTR help a 12-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Sam Zeug returned the kickoff 10 yards to the 39 yard line.  After a short pass reception, and two short runs, Wabasso again had to punt.  RTR took over on the 24 yard line, and on the first play, Drew Werkman hauled in a 24 yard pass, followed by a facemask penalty that put the ball on the 39 yard line.  A pass interference call put the ball on the 28 yard line, but the Wabasso defense stiffened and stopped RTR on fourth down to take over the ball on their own nine yard line. On their first play from scrimmage, Kaysen Harms had two receptions for 14 and 23 yards, putting the ball on the 48 yard line.  Quarterback Joe Liebl, who was a lineman the last two years but took over at quarterback his Senior year, made three nice runs, sandwiched around a couple of sacks.  But Noah Anderson hauled in a 27 yard pass, and after two Liebl runs totaling 26 yards, he scrambled and found Noah Anderson in the back of the end zone for the nine yard touchdown.  Anderson kicked the extra point, and now it was 12-7.  RTR got the kickoff, but the half ended with the score 12-7.

The second half started with Luke Schreurs going 35 yard to the 41 yard line.  Several good gains by Drew Chandler put them in good scoring position, but they were stopped on fourth down and Wabasso took over at their own 19 yard line.  RTR stopped Wabasso on three short runs, but a roughing the kicker on the punt gave the ball back to Wabasso.  Nolan Leopold had a 13 yard reception,, and an RTR Targeting penalty gave Wabasso a first down at the 40 yard line.  But three incompletions and a false start penalty led to another punt.  Some nice runs by Drew Chandler and Tyler Wichmann, plus a Facemask penalty.  Two more good runs by Chandler and Wichmann put the ball on the 12 yard line, and Sean Griesse grabbed a 12 yard touchdown pass, followed by a Luke Schreurs extra point made the score 20-7. 

With time running out in the fourth quarter, Wabasso made a valiant effort for a comeback, keyed by a 27 yard reception on fourth down by Kaysen Harms, but they couldn’t sustain the drive, and Liebl was stopped short on fourth down.  With Chandler and Wichmann doing the hard work, the Knights were able to run out the clock for a hard-earned 20-7 victory.

RTR quarterback Blake Christianson said after the game, “We were a lot more physical this week, and our line was outstanding, so congratulations to them.  We had a few drops, but we will go back and fix what we can fix and move forward from there.”

Wabasso Head Coach Cody Kittleson said, “We are a young team, and last year we played a lot of Freshman. Now they are playing as Sophomores, so they can’t use the excuse that they are young anymore.  But being young, playing against older players, it does make it tough at times. We saw growth from last week to this week, and that is what we had hoped to do.  Our cornerbacks did a lot better job this week, so it was good to see their growth.  But we have to be able to run the football, and we are a little undersized, so we weren’t able to do much of that tonight.  But we just have to keep working to get better.  We have some good skill players but our line to tall and skinny, so it makes it harder to run the ball.”

RTR is now 1-1, and Wabasso falls to 0-2. The Knights will host Springfield on Friday at 7 p.m. while Wabasso will host Sleepy Eye United at the same time.