EDIT: Owl coach Chad Christianon was told by section officials prior to Friday night’s game that if Hancock beat Ortonville, the Owls would be the Section 4 9-man champions. The Owls beat Ortonville Friday night ergo they are back-to-back section champions.
With all the ups and downs of 2020, the Hancock football team took advantage of every opportunity it was given, including dominating No. 4-seeded Ortonville in the Section 4 9-man playoffs Friday, Nov. 20, in Hancock.
The game was originally scheduled to be played as a semifinal match on Saturday afternoon, but with executive order 20-99 being issued Wednesday by Gov. Walz, that pushed the game up and also ended the postseason without a true section championship.
“Region 6A, which is the region that covers our section, decided that the two semifinal winners would receive section finalists trophies instead of having a section champ and runner up,” Owl coach Chad Christianson said in a phone interview Thursday with the Stevens County Times.
For a team that has gone 7-0 and beat every team it faced pretty handily, it’s a little bit of a let down to not be crowned the official Section 4 9-man champions.
“Personally, I know who the Section Champs are,” senior quarterback Preston Rohloff said. “And no one can take that away from us because we did a good job proving it during the season.
