SECTION 5A CHAMPIONSHIP: BOLD statement made
BOLD?defeats Minneota 49-7 to win Section 5A?crown, end Vikings’ season
MARSHALL – The Minneota Vikings ran into an offensive buzzsaw in Friday’s Section 5A Championship game and it came in the form of BOLD junior quarterback Jordan Sagedahl. Dropping back for just 12 passing attempts, the BOLD quarterback generated 289 yards and four touchdowns to guide the Warriors to a convincing 49-7 victory over the previously-unbeaten Vikings to punch their ticket to the state tournament.
Faced with a pick-your-poison scenario in trying to game plan for BOLD’s prolific rushing and passing attack, Minneota coach Chad Johnston elected to key in on the run in trying to stop the Warriors offense.
“That’s what we dared them to do,” said Johnston. “Our secondary is where we’ve struggled throughout the year, and it’s tough to put them in that position but take a guy out of the box and you try to double team somebody then they’re going to run it on you. We had to gamble a little bit and last year it worked for us, this year they just got in rhythm and put the ball where they needed to.”
The success through the air for BOLD began on its opening drive and put the Minneota Vikings in an unfamiliar position of staring down an early deficit as Sagedahl uncorked a deep ball and found his go-to receiver Lucas Ryan for a 34-yard connection to take an early 7-0 lead. The tandem was far from finished, however, as they would strike again before the end of the half and once more in the second half with the Vikings unable to find a way to stop them.
Normally up to the challenge in a shootout-style game, the Vikings offense struggled to gain any traction against the stingy Warriors defense that completely slowed down dynamic running back Cole Sanow and created a no-fly zone with a total of five interceptions in the game.
The Vikings were not able to get any points before halftime, and coach Johnston tipped his cap to the work of the opposing defense in their ability to limit the ever-dangerous Vikings.
“We obviously struggled,” said Johnston. “We struggled to get anything going offensively, (and) that’s a credit to BOLD. They’re big and they’re fast and we just couldn’t get on them. (We) couldn’t get any holes created and again they’re a good defense and we just never really got anything going.”.
Facing an uphill battle out of the half with BOLD set to receive the kickoff with a 28-0 lead in hand, the Vikings defensive struggles reared their ugly head once more with the Warriors continuing to challenge the Minneota secondary with a great deal of success. From midfield, Sagedahl launched another deep pass to find Gavin Vosika for a long gain that set up their fifth touchdown minutes into the second half.
The Vikings would answer moments later with Jacob Hennen finding Thomas Hennen for a long touchdown pass for their lone score of the game, but the stroke of good fortune for Minneota was short-lived. On the ensuing BOLD drive, Sagedahl added his fourth touchdown pass of the game to make it 42-7 and eliminate any hope of a Viking comeback. The Warriors would go on to add one more touchdown to bring the game to its final score of 49-7.
Though it was not the result that they had hoped for, coach Johnston was proud of the season that the Vikings had and the ability for his players to step into unfamiliar positions due to injuries.
“It was a good year for us,” said Johnston. “We kind of battled through injuries. We had guys get hurt the second day of fall camp, starters, so we’ve been battling injuries all year long, more than what we traditionally have and our kids have just stepped up. We’ve had guys go to different positions and learn new positions and they’ve done what they’ve had to do to get to this point, we just ran into a bigger more physical team today.”