Photo by Jake McNeill: Minneota wide receiver Eli Gruenes catches a screen pass for a 47-yard touchdown during the first half of a prep football game against Russell-Tyler-Ruthton at K.P. Kompelien Field in Minneota on Thursday night. The Vikings defeated the Knights to claim a home victory to open the season.

MINNEOTA — A pair of touchdowns and a forced turnover in the first 80 seconds of play set the tone for the Minneota football team’s season opener on Thursday night. The two-time reigning state champs jumped out to a 21-point lead in the first quarter of their game against Russell-Tyler-Ruthton and never looked back in the 54-21 victory.

“I don’t know if we’re overly crisp,” Minneota head coach Chad Johnston said after his team’s victories, noting that his team had some missed opportunities with interceptions, passing miscues and penalties that they need to clean up. “Just things that we’ve got to clean up if we want to get to the level where we know we’re capable of getting to, just small things that we’ve got to get better at.”

The Vikings received the opening kickoff and didn’t take long to find their way to the end zone. Ryan Meagher picked up a solid gain on the ground on the game’s first play from scrimmage before breaking off a 50-yard touchdown run on the second play.

After the Knights received the ensuing kickoff, Minneota recovered a botched handoff on RTR’s first play from scrimmage to get the ball right back in the red zone.

After an incompletion on first down, Minneota handed off a reverse to Destin Fier for another touchdown 1:17 into the first quarter. 

The Vikings’ line play was strong all night long, something Johnston attributed to the experience there. The group returned four starters, counting Noah Gorecki after he stepped into the role for the team’s final five games after an injury to Eli Gruenes last season, and the line continued to excel to start this season with Gruenes swapping positions to play tight end.

“That’s the strength of this group right now, and the fact that our skill kids at wing backs are back,” Johnston said. “Meagher’s back in the backfield, then you’ve got four of your five starting linemen back…. We expect them to be able to do things. We expect them to be able to control the line of scrimmage. We had some breakdowns in the blocking schemes but I thought for the most part we did a good job of controlling the line of scrimmage.”

Just as the Minneota offense was firing on all cylinders, the Vikings’ defensive line also continued to burst through the RTR offensive line. Each of the first three plays from scrimmage resulted in a loss. Excluding a pair of defensive pass interference calls, the Knights didn’t pick up a gain on any of their first nine offensive plays. 

“[Minneota’s] linebackers are really good. Their defense’s got a bunch of big boys and they really control the edge,” RTR head coach Darren Baartman said. “Their linebackers just fill so hard and it’s really tough to run the football against them. Tried to get back to the passing game a little bit, had some success doing that here once in a while, but they’re a great team and I’m sure they’re going to have a fantastic year again like last year.”

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton got the ball at the Minneota 22-yard line, courtesy of a John Griesse interception halfway through the first quarter. Minneota nearly had the Knights stopped when the Vikings were called for their third pass interference penalty of the first quarter on fourth down. 

With the Knights holding possession on first and goal, Kellen Bradley came up with the interception to keep RTR off the board. 

Fier got the Vikings off to a hot start out of the timeout, running through the RTR defense and spinning through a series of tackles for a 27-yard gain to start the drive. Shortly thereafter, Eli Gruenes caught a screen pass at the 47-yard line and took it to the house for a 21-0 Vikings lead with just over a minute remaining in the first half. 

“He was a skill kid up until his sophomore year. He was a running back for us, then we put him on offensive line because we had a lot of need, he made that switch, so it’s an easy transition because he’s been a skilled kid throughout his career,” Johnston said. 

The Vikings forced another RTR punt early in the second quarter and Joey Lacek returned the punt 49 yards to the RTR 23-yard line to put his team in scoring position. From there, it didn’t take long for Meagher to punch the ball into the end zone for his second touchdown of the game. The extra point sailed wide left but still led 27-0 after the score.

Trailing 34-0, RTR first got on the board in the final minute of the first half. Sean Griesse set up the score with the Knights’ biggest gain of the first half, a 35-yard reception while streaking down the left sideline. 

Lincoln Jerzak nearly squashed the scoring opportunity with a red zone interception for the Vikings with three minutes to play, but the pick was called back for defensive interference. The Knights capitalized on the miscue by slowly working their way downfield until Griesse again lost a defender by running a curl route just past the pylon for a touchdown reception with 34 seconds before halftime.

The reception was one of two touchdown receptions on the night for Griesse as he also burned the Minneota secondary for an 80-yard touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter, making the score 48-14.

Another quality return from Lacek gave Minneota an opportunity for one last score before the half but RTR stood tall in the red zone to go into the break trailing 34-7.

Gruenes set up MInneota’s final first-half touchdown when he caught a downfield pass for a 28-yard gain. Parker Bradley punched in the score with six minutes left in the second quarter, making the score 34-0.

Minneota picked up in the second half right where they left off. A muffed kick pinned RTR at their own 5-yard line and, after the Vikings forced a 3-and-out, Lucas Rybinski ran the ball in for a 41-7 MInneota lead three minutes into the half. 

The mercy rule came into play with five minutes remaining in the third quarter. Needing to bring their lead to 35 points to activate the running clock in the fourth quarter, Brody Larson found Brock Fier in the back of the end zone for a 13-yard touchdown pass, increasing the lead to 48-7. 

The Vikings got the ball back with under four minutes remaining in the third quarter and a 41-point lead, at which point they made the change to bring in backup quarterback Carson Javers for starter Brody Larson. Still, Minneota’s offense marched right down the field into the red zone but Isaac Janish came up with the leaping interception along the sideline to half the Vikings’ offense. 

Colten Thomsen added one last bit of window dressing for RTR when he cut through the defense with a run between the tackles and found his way over to the sidelines for a 65-yard touchdown. The touchdown trimmed Minneota’s lead to 27 points with five minutes remaining, but Brock Fier quickly came back with a 53-yard touchdown run of his own to make the score 54-21. 

Minneota, now 1-0 on the season, will head to Granite Falls to do battle with Yellow Medicine East on Friday. The Vikings steamrolled through their schedule en route to a state title last year and their last matchup against Yellow Medicine East was no different, with Minneota claiming a 63-19 win. 

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton drops to 0-1 after the loss and will look to pick up its first victory of the season when it hosts Wabasso for its home opener on Friday at 7 p.m. The Knights claimed a 20-7 victory over the Rabbits during their meeting last season, accounting for one of RTR’s two wins on the year. 

“The number one thing we’re looking for early in the year is to compete. No matter what the situation is, no matter what the score is, either up or down, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to go out and we’re going to compete,” Baartman said. “I thought the kids did a great job of doing that throughout the course of the game… the scoreboard doesn’t always reflect things. Minneota’s a great team, don’t get me wrong. Chad does an outstanding job with this program and they’ve got some really good players, but I thought our kids competed really hard and I’m really proud of them.”

Baartman added that the team will move on, watch some film to fix its mistakes and just focus on putting itself in a position to get better and improve as the year goes on.

Full stats were unavailable at the time of print.