Column: Blossoms should be proud of their season
Published 8:05 pm Monday, November 21, 2011
The Awesome Blossoms should not hold their heads down.
Blooming Prairie’s football team saw its season come to an end in a tough 50-27 loss at the hands of Dawson-Boyd at the Metrodome on Saturday.
The Blossoms put it all out there and had they been able to avoid three costly turnovers, they may have kept up with the Blackjacks down to the wire. What-ifs can haunt players for a lifetime, but it’s important for the Blossoms to remember what they actually did this year and not what they could’ve done.
BP senior quarterback Luc Zellmer did break the record for all-time touchdown passes with 102. I know he doesn’t care about the record right now and he would trade it for a chance to play in the prep bowl. But to lead an entire state in any career category is something vastly impressive.
He is one of the most humble football players I have ever seen and he definitely deserves the record.
The Blossoms did pull off dramatic wins over Southland and Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity.
BP had every reason to lose against LP/HT. They gave up a deep touchdown pass with just a few seconds left in the half, they couldn’t stop the lead option and they suffered a pair of fourth quarter turnovers.
However, they stood strong and made a key stop on a two-point conversion to hang on 35-34.
Against Southland, BP faced a vaunted Rebels rushing attack that looked to be finding its legs in the second half. But Gabe Kartes made the play of the night when he ran a kick back deep into Southland territory and he went on to score the go-ahead score in a 20-14 win.
The Blossoms did survive a terrible injury to Zellmer.
I still remember the night BP head coach Chad Gimbel called in the score for the LeCenter loss. There was something in his voice that wasn’t right and when he told me Zellmer was out for an unknown amount of time, I thought the worst.
I pictured BP losing a few games and dropping to the five or six seed in the section tournament.
I didn’t know about Isaiah Toquam. The senior receiver took over at the helm after not playing much quarterback since he started last season’s opener. He went on to lead BP to five straight victories — including a playoff win over Medford.
Fourteen seniors played in their last football game for BP and some of them got to play in the Metrodome twice. That’s something to embrace.
I couldn’t help but have a flashback at the end of BP’s loss Saturday. With the game decided, BP put all of its youngsters on the field. Freshman Cole Sunde got a couple of carries, freshman quarterback John Rumpza ran in a two-point conversion and freshman Scott Romeo got to play a little middle linebacker.
I couldn’t help of a game three years ago when a senior-heavy BP team was watching its season slip away in playoff a loss at Rushford/Peterson. As the game was winding down, a couple of freshman I’d never head of checked into the game.
One was Luc Zellmer and the other was Gabe Kartes.
I don’t know if the future BP teams will match what this group has just done, but it will be interesting to watch them try.