By: The Sports Guy
Proctor Journal

Well this was interesting. It took only 16 hours for the Proctor Rails to beat the Hibbing Bluejackets 30-6 in a football game at Terry Egerdahl Memorial Field on Fri., Sept. 26 and Sat., Sept. 27.

No, each team wasn’t given 100 timeouts. The gridiron contest became a marathon courtesy of Mother Nature, who served up a dinner combo of rain and lightning that halted the proceedings Friday evening and forced the game’s 4th quarter to be played at 10 a.m. the next morning.

It could have been worse: several area games were postponed completely. Not that this mattered much to the Rails—ahead 24-0 after three quarters on Friday, but one had to feel for the Bluejackets, behind by so much and then having to go home to Hibbing and come back to Proctor again about 8 hours later. The extra hardship may have inspired the visitors, as Hibbing averted the shutout with a literally last-second touchdown run as time ran out in the game. [Granted, the Rails, having removed nearly all their starters, may have helped the Bluejackets somewhat.]

The game was quirky from the start. A scoreless first quarter gave way to a 4-0 Proctor lead at the half off two safeties from botched Hibbing punt attempts; the wet and slippery ball twice went out the back of the Bluejackets’ end zone. All second-half scores by the Rails came on rushing attempts as Proctor wisely avoided big passing attempts in the drenched conditions. Senior running backs Eric Soberg and Shawn Wiita rolled up 80 and 83 respective yards with carries. Third-quarter Proctor touchdowns came from Soberg (15 yards), a quarterback Steve Nelson keeper (2 yards), and Kash Ankarlo (6 yards). Kicker Matt Holter was successful on two of three point-after attempts as the Rails built the 24-point deficit before the game was stopped. On Saturday, Proctor traded TD’s with Hibbing, Jay Carlson powering across the line for the Rails (4 yards), the kick no good.

With a 3-2 overall record, 3-1 in the Lake Superior Conference, Proctor currently sits in a three-way tie with Ashland and Cloquet at the top of the LSC. After dropping their first two games to powerful teams from Bismarck and Hermantown, the Rails have impressively clawed their way back into contention for the conference title with three games to go in the regular season.

Proctor begins a two-week road trip, traveling to International Falls tomorrow night (Fri.) and to Cloquet next week (for a perhaps pivotal LSC game) before returning home to play Virginia in the last regular season game on Wed., Oct. 15.