Area players make history
By Mary Hefta Last year, Darwin Routledge, a Westhope native, was chosen to restart the football program at MSU-Bottineau. The "Arntzen Alliance" was formed in the winter of 2007 to secure resources to re-establish Lumberjack Football. The college’s last football game was in the fall of 1960. Routledge and his team, the Lumberjacks, were looking for their first win of the new program on Sept. 20. Saturday, on their home field, the Jacks pulled out their first victory in front of a Homecoming crowd, beating the Ellendale Bible College 42-34. McLean County has three ties to the new Lumberjack football program. Frankie Lopez and Isaak Sondrol, both 2008 graduates of Turtle Lake-Mercer, and members of the first Central McLean Cougar football team, along with Andrew Hefta, a 2007 graduate of Underwood High School, are now Lumberjacks. Hefta was a player on the last Underwood Comet football team.
