Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Isaac Schmitt gets ready to block a North All-Star defender during the Minnesota Football Showcase on Saturday at U.S. Bank Stadium.

MINNEAPOLIS – Two area football players were amongst more than 90 of the top high school players in the state as the Minnesota Football Showcase was held at U.S. Bank Stadium on Saturday.

In a battle between the North and South All-Stars, players had the opportunity to matchup alongside opponents that might typically go against in the regular season. In the end, it was the South All-Stars who earned its third consecutive victory over the North team.

Marshall lineman Isaac Schmitt and Dawson-Boyd running back/defensive end Bentley Boike both competed for the South in the game. Also on the sidelines were a pair of coaches, as Yellow Medicine East’s Mike Gaffaney and Wabasso’s Joe Kemp served as assistant coaches for the South team.

Boike thought the whole experience was pretty special.

“It was amazing. If you have the chance to do it, you’ve got to do it,” Boike said. “I made so many new friends with everyone around the state; it was really cool.”

The South got out to a strong start defensively, as Mankato West’s Clay Herding intercepted Breck’s David Roddy and returned it for the touchdown to give the South All-Stars a 6-0 lead after the blocked extra point. On the next defensive possession, the South team got its second straight takeaway, this time a fumble recovery that set up a 31-yard pass from Eden Prairie’s Cole Kramer to East Ridge’s Simon Stark to make it 12-0 after another missed extra point attempt.

Then it was the offense’s turn for the South All-Stars in the second quarter. Owatonna running back Jason Williamson added to the South lead with a one-yard run before throwing a two-point conversion pass of his own to Spring Grove’s Ethan Matzke to increase the South advantage to 20-0 with 7:59 left in the first half.

After a pair of punts from either team, the North All-Stars had a chance to get some points on the board near the end of the half, but an interception from Rosemount’s Evan Geiwitz gave the ball back to the South All-Stars. The South team wasted little time getting to the end zone, and did so in a big way.

With Minnetonka’s Aaron Syverson under center, the quarterback would find Peter Udoibok of Cretin-Derham Hall, who took it 93 yards to the end zone for the score and the South All-Stars took a 26-0 lead going into halftime.

The South All-Stars quickly took advantage of its offensive opportunities to start the second half, as Kramer connected with Udoibok to make it 33-0 early. The North responded with a pair of touchdown passes from Roddy to Buffalo’s Treyton Welch and Sauk Rapids-Rice’s Braden Tretter, respectively, to pull to within 21, but the South All-Stars would run down the clock en route to the 33-12 victory.

Boike finished his day with 1.5 total tackles. He thought defensively they were able to transfer what they saw in practice effectively to the game on Saturday.

“In practice we got after it, so it related to the field and it was really fun,” Boike said. “We played as a whole group and got after it.”

While Schmitt lined up on the offensive line, he said it was fun to go out and represent the Tigers at U.S. Bank Stadium once more.

“It was fun going out there and representing Marshall and all the hard work I put in through the years in football,” Schmitt said.

Schmitt added that he was able to get to know a lot of people throughout the week and had good conversations with Boike, Kemp and Gaffaney.

“I had good conversations with all of them,” Schmitt said. “I hung out with Bentley quite a bit, talked to coach Kemp and Gaffaney and they had some good things to say.”

From a coaching standpoint, Gaffaney said it was a blessing to be able to coach some of the best players in the state and be back on the sidelines after not coaching this fall.

“I got lucky to be able to do it and it was kind of a blessing just because of the type of kids that you get to work with when you’re down here,” Gaffaney said. “Being out of football this fall, I was kind of having some withdrawl symptoms and it was a nice way to kind of end a career and on a high note.”

Kemp said while it was challenging to come up with a playbook from scratch in just a few days, he added the players made the experience worthwhile.

“We basically installed an entire offensive and defensive playbook over the course of three days which is challenging, but these kids are really up to it,” Kemp said. “They’re next-level type kids as we saw, so it was a lot of prep time and getting that ready. Basically it was all about the experience, and these kids made it worth it.”