pre-game photos
All Photos © Tim Fox
 Tim Bartz, President of the Helena accounting firm Anderson ZurMuehlen & Company, hands out goodie bags to senior offensive lineman Dan Mazurek and the rest of the Carroll College Saints football team at Helena Regional Airport. Dozens of people from the Helena community turned out Wednesday to see the Saints off to Tennessee as they try for a fourth consecutive NAIA National Football Championship. |
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 Head Coach Mike Van Diest shows his colors after arriving in Memphis, TN on Wednesday (12/14) in route to the NAIA Championship Game. |
 Tennessee State Trooper Jimmy Lambert sports a new Carroll College hat in Memphis, Tennessee as he greets the Saints at the airport. This is Trooper Lambert's fourth straight year of escorting the Saint's team buses in his State patrol car. The Saints football team and coaches traditionally present Trooper Lambert with a Carroll hat and other gifts during their stay in Tennessee. |
 All Americans Kyle Baker and Tyler Emmert, and Casey Crites of 3-Time NAIA National Champion Carroll College de-plane in Memphis Wednesday enroute to Savannah, TN to for their fourth straight appearance in the championship game. |
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 The staff and students at Walker Elementary School outside of Savannah, Tennessee were out in mass on Thursday to greet the Carroll College football team. The Saints first visited the school in 2002 when Carroll won its first NAIA National Championship title. The team makes it a point to visit the school each year even if the school is not on the itinerary dictated by the host, Team Hardin County, TN. |
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 Coach Van Diest signs an autograph for one of the local Hardin County children on Thursday before the championship game. |
 Coach Mike Van Diest gives some final instructions to his players at the Pickwick South Elementary School football field. |
 Saints assistant coach Matt Ventresca explains one of the expected St. Francis offensive plays to the Saints' scout team. |
 Head Carroll College Saints trainer Brian Coble gives advice to a Carroll football player at Thursday's practice. |
 Wide receivers Dustin Michaelis (left) and Tyler Peterson buddy stretch while warming up at Thursday's practice. |
 Saints Assistant Coach Mark Lenhardt maps a play for the scout team defense as the Saints prepare for the game. |
 The Carroll Saints football team watches a group of Hardin County High School students perform rock and roll and country music at the Pickwick State Park Convention Center on Thursday evening. |
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 Carroll Fighting Saints football players (left to right) Seamus Molloy, Chris Ramstead, Cody Zimmerman, Bryce Doak, and Nick Milodragovich check out a display case full of memorabilia at the Buford Pussar (of "Walking Tall" movie fame) Museum in Adamsville, TN. |
 Sheriff Buford Pussar (played by LB Gary Cooper) wields his famous "big stick" as he moves in to arrest notorious moonshiners Jimmy Lee Baugus (LB Josh Schmidt) and Jerry Ray McCoy (FS Regan Mack) in this scene from an upcoming movie about Pussar. |
 Union soldiers from the Montana Carroll Brigade fire a volley on Confederate troops before making a bayonet charge in this reenactment of the famous Civil War Battle of Shiloh near what is now Savannah, TN. The event was staged by the Carroll College Fighting Saints football team at Friday's final practice. |
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 The Saints football team hoist wide receiver Tyler Peterson into the air during Friday's final practice before Saturday's NAIA National Championship game. In what has become an annual ritual, the Saints always lift their best receiver into the air during the final practice. In Carroll's prior three National Championship trips, they've hoisted Casey Fitzsimmons (2002), Mark Galik (2003), and Kevin McCutheon (2004) into the air. |
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 2005 NAIA Player of the Year Tyler Emmert with his trusted Center, Kyle Baker. |
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