There is no joy in Minneotaville ....
The famous poem, "Casey at the Bat," was penned by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. The most famous line in that poem depicted the horrific results when The Mighty Casey struck out.
It read, "There is no joy in Mudville, for Mighty Casey has struck out."
To take a line from that old poem and, implant it for Saturday's game in Minneota, it might read today, "There is no joy in Minneotaville, because the Vikings have been shutout."
For the second time this season, the Canby Lancers kept Minneota from scoring a touchdown — and for the second time, they've defeated the Vikings — this time 13-0.
It earned the Lancers a spot in the Section 5A championship next Friday at SMSU against BOLD (a 23-6 winner over Dawson-Boyd) and bounced Minneota from the Section 5A Playoffs.
The Vikings lost not just a game — but a player.
In the second half, senior receiver Alex Saltzer had to be taken off the field on a stretcher and taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Coach Chad Johnston called it, "Precautionary", indicating Saltzer had a pain in his back — something that seemed to have started earlier in the game. "He was moving his hands and legs so that's a good sign," the coach said.
Saltzer's injury, which occurred when he ran back a punt at the very end of the third quarter, seemed to symbolic of the trouble Minneota was in all day long.
"We just couldn't (afford to) make those mistakes," said the coach.
Mistakes?
Three intercepted passes, shanked punts, missed tackles and allowing Canby big plays all added to the end of the Minneota season.
That, and two touchdowns in the third quarter by Canby put the Vikings out of the playoffs.
"That's what Canby's been doing, not giving up a lot of points. They contained us and did a lot of defensive things against us today," the coach said.
Yet, there was some debate on the Minneota side whether or not Canby actually scored their first touchdown.
In the third quarter, Lancer quarterback Parker Viessman threw a low pass to Kalib Greenman, when he went to the ground to catch. "I thought I saw a drop," said Minneota Coach Johnston. But the referees called it a touchdown. When Kaden Reyerson kicked the extra point, it was 7-0, Lancers at 8:54 in the third period.
The Vikings were forced to punt and one play later Viessman threw a long pass to Greenman, who took it on the run, went to the right sideline, avoided a Minneota tackler and went in for an 80-yard touchdown.
Despite Reyerson's missed kick, Canby led 13-0 and had deflated the Vikings with seven minutes to go in the third period.
Minneota's defense, which was stellar all day, except for that one long pass, held up the rest of the way. Logan Sussner had a sack, combined for another with Jacob Citterman and Sussner seven tackles. Conner Sik and Jayden Gamrak also had sacks and Cole Sanow, who returned to the lineup after two games off as he nursed a sore ankle, had 11 tackles, five of them solo. Blake Reiss also got in on the fun with six tackles and did have a tackle for loss.
"Our defense played extremely well today," said Coach Johnston.
Just before the half Canby nearly scored, using a 25-yard pass to get the ball to the one yard line. But a sturdy Minneota defensive line rose up and stopped Tyler Stoks on the three-yard line to keep the game scoreless at the half. And, Sussner's sack of quarterback Viessman was for nine lost yards.
The first half's highlight for the Vikings was a 31-yard runback punt by Saltzer, but it didn't help the Vikings get into the end zone.
As for Minneota's offense, they sputtered when trying to run the ball (just 49 yards all day). And the passing game at times gave the team a lift, but Lozinski was intercepted three times, twice by Tyler Sayer (one in the end zone). And Shane Noyes picked off the other pass on a deflection in the waning moments of the game.
It's not often Minneota is out-gained — but Canby did it, 223 yards to 170. The Vikings had 121 yards in the air but Lozinski completed just 12 of 27 passes.
"It never makes them feel better, but I tell our players a lot of people wrote us off at the start. We started red hot — but we got exposed today for how young we are," said Coach Johnson.
He said his young line played well at times, while at other times didn't measure up. "Guys like Jackson Esping went both ways and he was out the last two seasons with injuries," said the coach.
It was Jacob Citterman's first season at starting tackle, Grady Moorse was moved into the line from a running back position, Cole Myhre at center is a sophomore and playing in his first campaign and Lozinski had to take over the quarterback slot as a sophomore without much experience.
"It was a good season," Johnston said about the 8-2 campaign that produced a Southwest District Title.
"We did not want it to end so soon. We wanted to be there," the coach said about the Section 5A finals. But he acknowledged his young squad would have had a huge task against the No. 1-ranked, defending runnerup BOLD Warriors in the section finals.
"We needed to get by this one, and just didn't do it," the coach said.
Canby 0 0 13 0 — 13
Minneota 0 0 0 0 — 0
First Quarter:
None
Second Quarter:
None
Third Quarter:
Canby-Kalib Greenman 14 pass from Parker Viessman. PAT- Kaden Reyerson kick.
Canby-Greenman 80 pass from Viessman. PAT-Kick failed.
Fourth Quarter:
None
Team Statistics:
Minneota Canby
9 First Downs 6
3-20 Penalties/Yards 3-30
2-0 Fumbles/Lost 1-0
26-49 Rushes/Yards 31-88
121 Passing Yards 135
170 Total Yards 223
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS:
RUSHING: (No., yds.) Minneota-Cole Sanow 16-51; Blake Reiss 5-5; AJ Josephson 2-2; Kade Lozinski 3-minus 9; Canby: Ty Stoks 14-77; Cameron Anderson 8-5; Viessman 9-6.
PASSING: (No., comp., int., yds.) Minneota-Lozinski 27-12-3-121; Canby-Viessman 11-5-0-80.
RECEIVING: (No., yds.) Minneota-Logan Sussner 2-38; Reiss 3-33; Joseph Rybinski 3-30; Alex Saltzer 2-16; Tate Walerius 1-3; Sanow 1-1; Canby: Greenman 5-135.
KICKOFFS: (No., yds., avg.) Minneota-Peyton Gillund 1-47-47.0; Canby-Reyerson 3-98-32.6.
KICKOFF RETURNS: (No., yds.) Minneota: Saltzer 2-16; AJ Myhre 1-7; Canby-Tyler Sayre 1-23.
PUNTS: (No., yds., avg.) Minneota-Saltzer 4-8-4-21.0; Lozinski 1-40-40.0; Canby-Will Varcoe 8-200-25.0.
PUNT RETURNS: (No., yds.) Minneota-Saltzer 3-12; Reiss 1-1; others 4-0; Canby-5-0.
TACKLES: (Solo, assists) Minneota-Sanow 5-6; Sussner 3-4; Reiss 2-4; Jacob Citterman 2-1; AJ Myhre 2-0; Saltzer 1-0; Conner Sik 1-2; Jayden Gamrak 1-0; Jackson Esping 1-0; Cooper VanOverbeke 1-0; AJ Josephson 0-1; Joseph Rypinski 0-3; Tucker Thooft 0-3; Beau Banish 0-3; Anthony Rybinski 0-1.
TACKLES FOR LOSS: Minneota-Reiss, Citterman.
SACKS: Minneota-Citterman and Sussner (plus one solo), Sik, Gamrak; Canby-Dylan Bruns.
INTERCEPTIONS: Canby-Sayer 2, Shane Noyes.
FUMBLES RECOVERED: None.