There’s a reason Becker coach Dwight Lundeen is considered one of the elder statesman of high school football coaches.

Of course, any time you’ve been doing the same job for 56 years, and doing it well, respect is going to come your way. After all, Lundeen went into Friday night’s game at Orono as the second-winningest high school football coach in state history with 412 victories.

But what makes Lundeen so revered among coaches is his grace and dignity when things don’t go his way.

They certainly didn’t Friday, when Orono dominated the defending Class 4A champion Bulldogs 21-0.

The Spartans’ fast, athletic offense moved the ball successfully behind the fleet feet of first-year starting quarterback Griffin Mauer and the power running of senior running back Rory Kvern. It was the Orono defense, however, that stole the show Friday.

Spartans coach Joe McPherson let loose the defense’s dogs and they chased and harassed Becker quarterback Tristan Kowalkowski from the outset, never giving the strong-armed southpaw a chance to get comfortable.

“We had to do something to try to get some pressure on ’em and make ’em make decisions quickly,” said a broadly smiling McPherson. “And we had some things go our way.”

Mauer passed for a touchdown and ran for another and looked comfortable is his new role. He admitted the Spartans had circled the game months ago and had long looked forward to playing the defending champs.

“We were ready for this moment,” he said. “We’re ready for the other games to come. ”You know, we wanna be the team that everyone else wants to play.”

Not only did Orono control play for much of the night, the Spartans forced Becker into the type of mistakes the Bulldogs aren’t accustomed to making. Becker turned the ball over three times, had a punt snap sail over the punter’s head and had its lone bright spot, a 36-yard third-quarter touchdown pass, called back due to holding.

“Orono played really well and we did a number of things not so well,” Lundeen said with nary a note of anger. “My hat’s off to them. They deserved to win, and you know what, we’ll get better. We’ll go back to work on Monday and fix the things that we can fix. That’s what coaching is.”