Photo by Jake McNeill: Minneota running back Destin Fier speeds through a gap for a touchdown during the third quarter of the Vikings' 55-0 win over Braham in the Class A quarterfinals at St. Cloud Tech High School on Friday night.

ST. CLOUD — Ryan Meagher and the Minneota football team were able to get the ball rolling early with the ground game and ran away with a 55-0 win over Braham in the Class A quarterfinals at St. Cloud Tech on Friday night. They’ll now play Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa in the Class A semifinals on Saturday.

“We’ve got to be ready. We’ve seen BBE a little bit and they’re a lot like Braham in terms of some of their formations,” Minneota head coach Chad Johnston said, adding that BBE quarterback Luke Dinghmann doesn’t have quite the same quickness as the Braham quarterback but that his athleticism and 6-foot, 4-inch frame provides similar challenges for the Vikings as Braham quarterback Jacob Tepley. “I thought tonight we did a nice job of getting pressure on him. We’re worried about them throwing the ball a little bit against us, but we never really let them get comfortable. We’ve got to keep that mindset going because getting BBE is going to be a lot like that.”

Meagher wasted no time finding the end zone, scoring twice on an 81-yard run and a 12-yard run in the first quarter alone. He also completed the hat trick with a 38-yard touchdown reception in the second quarter that put the Vikings up 35-0.

While only taking six carries, Meagher ran for 132 yards while catching three passes for 68 yards in the game. As a team, Minneota accumulated 291 rushing yards while holding Braham to -19.

While the run game was the Vikings’ bread and butter, they had no problem throwing the ball either. Ryan Dalager completed eight of his 12 passes for 130 yards while Carson Javers also completed a 14-yard pass.

Max Rost caught the first of Dalager’s three touchdown passes at the end of the first quarter, scoring on the 10-yard reception. It wasn’t the last time Rost found the end zone on the day as he also rushed for a 4-yard score and caught an 18-yard touchdown before halftime that put the Vikings up 41-0. He caught a game-high four passes for 62 yards in the game.

Destin Fier and Adam DeVlaeminck each scored on 7-yard touchdown runs in the third quarter. Fier racked up 51 yards on six carries in the game.

Kayson Arndt and Kaden Neyens each had a sack for the Vikings in the win. Arndt finished with a team-high five solo tackles and two tackles for loss. No other Viking had more than a pair of tackles in the match.

Minneota’s defense stifled all aspects of the Bombers’ offense. In addition to holding Braham to negative rushing yards, they also limited the bombers to 60 passing yards on 20 attempts. The Bombers also completed just three of their 12 third-down attempts, compared to Minnneota’s four successful conversions on six attempts.

The only area of the game in which the Vikings did struggle was penalties. They were called for a couple of illegal helmet contact penalties that allowed the Bombers to move the chains.

“I didn’t think any of our helmet-to-helmets were anything vicious or anything malicious. Got to fix those things if that’s what the state’s going to call and make sure that we don’t get those penalties,” Johnston said. “I thought we played a very clean game minus a few penalties here and there.”

Johnston had said that getting healthy was a priority heading into Friday’s game but the injuries kept coming as the Vikings had another pair of ankle injuries during the game.

“It’s been a long season. It’s that time of year you typically get banged up,” Johnston said, adding that he hopes his team can take advantage of the fact that they have eight days to recover before their next game instead of the usual seven. “As you see guys come off, next guy’s got to step up. We’re kind of joking, saying, ‘I think we’re running out of next guys,’ but that’s always been our philosophy all season long. We get some of these games that we get up on teams, get kids out there and we want those kids getting experience. We want them to get ready to go and you never know when they’re going to be needed.”

Minneota and BBE will kick off their semifinal matchup at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday at 11:30 a.m.