Stiff Competition at State Tournament Awaits MIB Football Team

The Rangers will face fifth-ranked Fertile-Beltrami in the quarterfinals Thursday night in Grand Rapids.

MOUNTAIN IRON, Minn. – State football tournaments kick-off this week and Mountain Iron-Buhl is back in the 9-man bracket after a dominant win in the section title game.

The Rangers come in with just one loss on the season and are riding a five-game win streak. But now the competition gets tougher as they’ll face fifth-ranked Fertile-Beltrami in the quarterfinals.

“Any team that’s undefeated, they obviously have to be pretty good so we can’t take that lightly. I think we’re playing better than we ever have. We started off the year kind of rusty I feel like but we’ve definitely turned it up,” offensive tackle Ben Lind said.

“I found out this summer that it was probably going to be them out of section six so I’ve seen them four times. We’ve traded films now so we know what to expect from them. We saw on film some teams that do the stuff we did so I would assume they’re going to play us the same way they did them, based on their coverages. Then we just adjust our plays as we need them,” said head coach Dan Zubich.

The quarterfinal game between the Rangers and the Falcons is set for Thursday at 6 p.m in Grand Rapids.