Fourth quarter surge propels Vikes over Blackjacks

The game was tied 14-14 after three quarters.
“And they (Dawson-Boyd) had all the momentum,” said Minneota fullback Cole Sanow.
But he knew something the Blackjacks did’t know.
“We just had to play Minneota football,” said the injured Minneota junior who slashed his way to 226 yards rushing on 29 carries.
And Minneota did just that — played their kind of football, scored three, fourth-quarter touchdowns and beat the Blackjacks, 35-14 to advance to the Section 5A finals.
They will play BOLD (9-0), at 4 p.m. Friday at SMSU in Marshall for a spot in the state tournament. BOLD beat Ortonville, 68-7.
Sanow was playing with pain in his shoulder, but once he got into the game, “The adrenaline took over.” he said. “I told myself I wasn’t coming out of this game unless I had too,” said Sanow.
The one-two combination of Sanow and quarterback Thomas Hennen was deadly. Hennen ran the ball 18 times for 141 yards and kept the Blackjacks guessing all afternoon.
“We had to step up. Cole was playing with pain today and ran hard. That’s what we needed kids to do,” said Coach Chad Johnston.
“Thomas worked more on it (running) this week,” so, “We had another tool,” added the coach.
Dawson-Boyd dominated the third quarter, got their highly-touted running back Bentley Boike rolling and they ripped off a pair of touchdowns. One was a Boike sweep of 21 yards the other one-yard plunge by Boike.
But that’s when Minneota took over.
“the kids got the sense of urgency,” said Coach Johnston.
“With the game tied, they went on an eight-play 53-yard drive featuring 38-yards of running by Hennen and need when he swept around end for a 14-yard touchdown.
Kicker Sebastiano Beraldo was true to form, smashing through all his kicks — including this one and it was 21-14.
With Beau Banish and Shawn Buysse shutting down the Blackjacks on defense, Minneota got the ball back, holding on a fourth down play by Dawson-Boyd.
This time they used an eight-play, 39-yard drive with Sanow carrying the ball most of the way and Hennen sweeping the end for 17 yards. Sanow got the touchdown on a four-yard run, Beraldo nailed the kick and Minneota had a 28-14 lead with 3:02 in the game.
“The kids did a lot of good things, the whole game really” said Coach Johnston.
Sanow put an exclamation point on the game when he broke through the line and went on a 57-yard romp for a touchdown with 1:49 left in the game.
“My linemen blew the holes open and I saw the crease,” said Sanow.
Linemen Ty Lipinski, Buysse, Cole VanOverbeke, Mitchell Rost, Josh Laleman and Logan Sussner provided the blocking that enabled Sanow and Hennen to smash their way to 367 yards between them.
Minneota got set up in the first quarter when Dawson-Boyd fumbled twice with Sanow recovering one and Ty Lipinski the other.
They scored on both mistakes. A third turnover, an intercepted pass by Thomas Hennen didn’t result in a score but it kept Minneota’s instincts on defense alive.
The Blackjacks got their own interception on a Jacob Hennen pass when Josh Anyasike stepped in front of Minneota receivers. But the Blackjacks couldn’t capitalize.
Minneota drove the ball again to Dawson-Boyd’s 26 yard line, but a fumble was recovered by Anyasike to end that threat.
Another Minneota drive to the Dawson-Boyd 15 ended when Anyasike intercepted his second pass. and began a drive that was stopped by the Minneota line led by Cole VanOverbeke.

GRIDIRON NOTES:
•Injured Landon Rolbiecki did suit up at the last moment, and wearing a pad on his injured leg, did some kicking and played sparingly but he did play.

Dawson-Boyd     0  0   14  0   —  14
Minneota            14 0   0   21  —  35
First Quarter
Minneota-Thomas Hennen 1 run. PAT-Sebastiano Beraldo kick.
Minneota-Cole Sanow 7 run. PAT-Beraldo kick.
Second Quarter
No scoring
Third Quarter
Dawson-Boyd-Bentley Boike 22 run. PAT-Isaac Jang kick.
Dawson-Boyd-Boike 1 run. PAT-Jang kick.
Fourth Quarter
Minneota-Hennen 13 run. PAT-Beraldo kick.
Minneota-Sanow 4 run. PAT-Beraldo kick.
Minneota-Sanow 57 run. PAT-Beraldo kick.

Team Statistics
Minneota                            D-B
24        First Downs            15
5-30     Penalties/Yards      6-49
1-1        Fumbles/Lost         2-4
53-400 Rushes/Yards         27-111
53        Passing Yards        148
453      Total Yards              259

Individual Statistics
RUSHING (No., yds.) Minneota-Thomas Hennen 18-141; Cole Sanow 29-226; Blake Reiss 4-28; Tanner Sterzinger 1-5; Shawn Buysse 1-0. D-B-Bentley Boike 20-96; Josh Anyasike 1-8; Keaton Schuelke 1-5; Colton Husby 2-2; Jake Lee 2-0.
PASSING (No., compl., Int., yds.) Minneota-Thomas Hennen 4-2-1-32; Jacob Hennen 5-2-1-21. D-B Lee 24-14-1-148.
RECEIVING: (No., yds.) Minneota-Alex Saltzer 1-17; Sanow 1-15; Sussner 1-15; Thomas Hennen 1-6. DB-Schuelke 3-46; Husby 4-32; Rommel Horton 2-28; Zach Durfee 3-20; J. Anyasike 1-18; Boike 1-4.
KICKOFFS: (No., yds., avg.) Minneota-Landon Rolbiecki, 1-34-40-40.0; Tate Walerius 4-156-39.0; Kade Lozinski 2-60-30.0; DB-I. Jang 3-137-45.6.
KICKOFF RETURNS: (No., yds.) Minneota-T. Hennen 2-16; Joe Rybinski 1-13; D-B-M. Olson 2-21; J. Anyasike 3-12; R. Horton 1-14. other 1-0.
PUNTS: (No., yd., avg.) Minneota-A. Saltzer 1-23-23.0; D-B-Boike 2-58-29.0.
PUNT RETURNS: (No., avg.) Minneota-T. Hennen 1-7; D-B 1-0.
TACKLES: (Solo-assists); Minneota-Sterzinger, S. Buysse 5-1 each; AJ Myhre 4-1; Sanow 3-1; Mitchell Rost 3-3; B. Reiss 2-4; L. Sussner, C.VanOverbeke 1-2; Beau Banish 1-3; Justin Johnson, Ty Lipinski 1-1 each; K. Lozinski, Austin Sorenson, 1-0; T. Hennen 0-2; Walterius, Grady Moorse 0-1. Dawson-Boyd: Boike 7-1; J.Anyasike 7-3; R. Horton 7-1; A. Moen 4-0; K. Schuelke 3-1; C. Husby 3-4; J. Hastad 3-1; Z. Durfee 2-1; K. Lindblad 1-6; S. Irvine 1-3; Q. Lehmann 0-3; Others 3-1.
SACKS: None.
TACKLE FOR LOSS: Minneota-M. Rost; D-B-Boike 3.
INTERCEPTIONS: Minneota-T. Hennen; D-B-Anyasike, Horton.
FUMBLE RECOVERIES: Minneota-Sanow, Lipinski; D-B-Anayski.