Sports, Did you know .....

The Bronco girls hockey team will be searching for its fourth all-time victory against Roseau tonight. The Broncos are 3-14 all-time against the Rams, while head coach Bruce Elson is 0-4. The Falls hasn’t defeated Roseau since the 2001-02 season and is 0-12 since that 3-2 victory in overtime.

Broncos girls hockey coach Bruce Elson enters tonight’s season-opening game at Sartell with a 22-30-1 overall record in two years. The Broncos have never played Sartell (co-op with St. Stephen and Sauk Rapids), but own a 2-0 all-time record against Saturday’s opponent, Princeton.

The Broncos girls hockey team collected the first win in school history in the fourth game of its inaugural season in 1999. The Falls defeated Pequot Lakes 2-1 in what turned out to be its only win of the season. Since that 1-17-1 first season, the Broncos are 70-122-5, including a school-best 13-13-1 last year. The Broncos open the 2008-09 season Friday at Sartell, and play again Saturday at Princeton.

The Ada-Borup Cougars beat another Section 7 team in the state quarterfinals — Tower-Soudan — in its only other trip to state in 2001. The Cougars advanced all the way to the championship that season before losing to Hillcrest Lutheran Academy (Fergus Falls) 37-7.

Three teams from the Class Nine-Man state football tournament return from the 2007 field, including the Littlefork-Big Falls Vikings. Verndale and Houston also qualified last season. Northland, who lost Thursday to Kittson County Central 54-14, was the only participant from the eight-team field making its first appearance. Four teams — L-BF (11-0), Verndale (10-0), Houston (11-0) and Clinton-Beardsley-Graceville (11-0) — enter undefeated.

The Littlefork-Big Falls Vikings and the Ada-Borup Cougars have combined to win zero state championships in football. The Vikings will enter their sixth state tournament in school history Friday against the Cougars, who are making their second appearance. L-BF qualified for state in 1987, ’90, ’94, 2000 and ’07, while the Cougars’ qualified in 2001.

The state-bound Littlefork-Big Falls Vikings football team (11-0) outgained opponents 4,354-1,412 in total yards this season, or an average of 395.8-128. The Vikings racked up 3,837 yards rushing and heavily trumped opponents in nearly every offensive category. Defensively, the Vikings held opponents 33 points, or 3.3 points a contest, while scoring 44 points a contest.

The state-bound Littlefork-Big Falls Vikings football team (11-0) is averaging 44 points and surrendering only 3.3 points a game. L-BF has seven shutouts and will look to improve on its perfect mark Friday against Ada-Borup in the quarterfinals of the state tournament. Kickoff is 5 p.m. at Public School Stadium in Duluth.
Advanced ticket sales for the game go on sale at 8:30 a.m. today at the high school office. Adults are $8 and students are $5.

Today is Bronko Nagurski’s 100th birthday. Bronislau “Bronko” Nagurski was born in 1908 and passed away Jan. 7, 1990. The local legend is most famous for his professional football and wrestling careers.

Did you know ... ?
• Bronko’s last public appearance was at Super Bowl XVIII in 1984, when he took part in the coin flip.

In his fourth season as Littlefork-Big Falls head football coach, Derek Bilben has compiled a 37-7 overall record (.841) heading into tonight’s Section 7 Nine-Man contest at home against Mountain Iron-Buhl. Bilben is 28-4 in the regular season, 9-2 in sections and 0-1 at state. His teams have scored 1,433 points and allowed just 415, or an average score of 32.6-9.4.