Becker loses to Orono in coach Dwight Lundeen's final season opener

BECKER, MN — Entering the fourth quarter with a slim lead on Sept. 3, Becker took a commanding nine-point advantage with 7:48 left on the clock. In an outing that had been far from perfect, the Bulldogs could taste victory up two scores in the waning minutes of the game.

Then Orono senior quarterback Finn Dyvik found senior receiver Owen Paulson along the sideline for a 68-yard pitch-and-catch to score the first of 23 fourth quarter points for the Spartans to suck the out of Dwight Lundeen Stadium and escape with a win.

While it may not have been the storybook beginning to Becker's head coach Dwight Lundeen farewell tour after 57 seasons, the two most recent 4A champions did not disappoint as Orono bested Becker 35-28 thanks to its big fourth quarter effort.

Becker got the scoring started in the first half with a 14-0 lead heading into the locker room behind two first-half interceptions and a 40-yard touchdown reception from senior RJ Houle.

The reigning champs stayed calm, though. Coming out in the second half and scoring two unanswered touchdowns in the third quarter, including a second interception by Becker's senior quarterback Tristan Kowalkowski.

"We made a couple of adjustments on our defensive front and how we were playing coverage," Orono coach Joe McPherson said. "We were doing okay in the first half. We just were giving up the big play and getting our eyes wrong, so we got our eyes right in the second half."

As the fourth quarter progressed, the Bulldogs continued to unravel with a fumble on the kick return which led to Orono's second touchdown in just over a minute of gametime to take its first lead of the night.

Kowalkowski would find Houle for 59 yards — the longest of three big connections between the two — to set up a game-tying score by senior receiver Tarver Schendzielos, but the Spartans marched right down the field to get the go-ahead score with 34 seconds remaining with a sweep to Hudson Hirt.

In the end, it was just too many mistakes by Becker to dethrone the defending champs.

"I was proud of them," Lundeen said. "They played hard, but we just did enough things to cause us not to win. We snapped the ball over our head, we fumbled the ball on the three-yard line and we missed some assignments defensively that gave them some big runs. Those are all things we can fix."

Becker is on the road at Hutchinson on Sept. 11 for week two.

You can reach St. Cloud Times sports reporter David Jacobs and send story ideas to djacobs@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @davidrjacobs10 .