By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The Otter Tail Central Bulldogs received the third seed and will open up their section tournament with a home game against sixth seeded Lake Park-Audubon (3-5 overall) on Tuesday night. The Bulldogs received the third seed after finishing the regular season with a record of 5-3 overall and a QRF ranking of 27. 

The winner of Tuesday’s game, which will be held at Don Seipkes Field in Henning starting at 6 p.m., will take on either second seeded Pine River-Backus, who finished the year with a record of 6-2, and Walker-Hackensack-Akeley who finished the year with a record of 3-5. The game will be held at the high seed on Saturday. 

On the other side of the bracket top seeded New York Mills (7-1 overall) will take on eighth seeded Underwood (0-8 overall) and fourth seeded Menahga (5-3 overall) will host fifth seeded Breckenridge (5-3 overall). 

The section championship game will be held on Friday, Nov. 4 at 5:30 p.m. at the FargoDome. 

The Bulldogs fell to 5-3 last week after dropping their second straight game, this time by a score of 13-7 to Parkers Prairie. 

The Panthers opened the scoring in the second quarter with a pair of touchdown runs by David Revering on a 13-yard run and Mason Boesel on an 11-yard run to make the score 13-0. 

OTC answered with a big 41-yard touchdown pass from Jack Mekalson to Mason Dalluge to cut the score to 13-7 following an Owen Buehler extra point. The three touchdowns in the second quarter would be all of the scoring for either team, as OTC was unable to overcome 4 turnovers in the regular season finale. 

Mekalson went 9-15 passing for 106 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception in the loss.

Bricker Bladow led the team in rushing with 20 carries for 92 yards, while Mason Hammer had 13 carries for 60 yards and Mekalson had 4 carries for 7 yards.

Dalluge was the leading receiver with 4 catches for 60 yards and a touchdown. Drew Johnson had 1 catch for 22 yards, Hammer had 2 catches for 21 yards and Buehler had 2 catches for 3 yards.