Seeing Cretin-Derham Hall and Lakeville North meet in October or November would in most years be a highly anticipated playoff contest with the bleachers packed at some high school stadium or thousands of purple and gold or red and black-clad fans inside U.S. Bank Stadium.
Instead, they met Saturday in a season opener that neither team saw happening less than 24 hours earlier, and in front of a largely family member, masked crowd topping out at 250 people.
But little is normal in 2020, the year of COVID-19.
That includes the one-sided result between perennial top-10 teams in Class 6A.
Logan Freeburg ran for 170 yards and four touchdowns, Gavin Dugan returned an interception for a score, and Lakeville North scored 28 first-quarter points en route to a 55-14 win over Cretin-Derham Hall at the University of Northwestern.
“I think this says we’re a for real team this year,” Freeburg said. “I think a lot of people are kind of thinking that with our losses of our seniors from last season that we weren’t going to come out and be the team we were last year, but I think we’re a better team than we were last year. It’s a lot more balanced.”
Cretin-Derham Hall was to play Roseville on Saturday, while the Panthers expected to face Rosemount on Friday. However, the coronavirus forced Roseville to cancel Friday night; one day after Rosemount had to do the same.
A few phone calls between coaches and a couple others led to it quickly became game on.
“It really was a situation of we’ll play anybody anywhere,” said Panthers coach Brian Vossen. “Our whole staff and our kids just wanted to play.”
Conversely, Cretin-Derham Hall was amiss, especially early.
Its first three drives were a combined seven plays – including an interception, bad punt and fumble.
On the Raiders’ second play, Luke Floysand was hit as he threw. Gavin Dugan easily corralled the pop fly and dashed 30 yards to the end zone 46 seconds into the contest.
“Started off the game great, and then we just pounded them the whole time,” Dugan said.
Tre Holloman and Marselio Mendez connected for a 40-yard third-quarter score, and Holloman scored on a 64-yard run in the fourth, the lone highlights in a game where Cretin-Derham Hall otherwise had two first downs.
“We had only two kids return on defense,” Vossen said. “It really just came down to how well are they going to handle the fundamentals of what we coach. Can those fundamentals basically translate to a completely unknown team? Today, they did.”
Cretin-Derham Hall’s second drive netted minus-7 yards before a low fourth-down punt hit a Raiders player in the back, giving Lakeville North the ball at the 5.
Freeburg scored from there two plays later, and it was 14-0 Panthers.
Ryan Dolejs recovered a fumble on the Raiders’ next play, and Gavin Schraufnagel scored untouched from the 24 two plays later.
Freeburg, who led the Panthers with more than 1,400 rushing yards last year, added a 1-yard run for a 28-0 lead with 4:32 left in the opening quarter. The senior had 9- and 72-yard scores in the third.
Behind a beefy offensive line, Lakeville North rushed for 326 yards.
But the Panthers struck from the air, too. On 3rd-and-22, Matt Miller found Cooper Laufenburger for a 34-yard score in the second quarter, and the duo hooked up from 24 yards in the fourth.
