The High School Football State Championships continue on Friday and move into Saturday after the first day saw two games on Thursday at the DakotaDome in Vermillion.
With the 11AA game being the featured match of the night between Pierre and Yankton, the 9A game will start the day on Friday. It will be a tough task for the Howard Tigers to go against the Wall Eagles who have just about rolled everybody all season. In fact, Wall has only finished one game all season. Philip, who the Eagles beat in the semifinals, lost to Wall 54-6 to start the season, the last time the Eagles didn’t get the 50 point mercy rule on a team. Castlewood, Wall’s second round opponent, didn’t finish the game with the score of 41-0. Howard comes in as the seven seed into the contest, the lowest of any team in the state championships this weekend. The Tigers are 9-2 on the season and fought off Alcester-Hudson on the road, 18-12 to reach the title game after beating the second seeded Warner Monarchs 28-21 the week prior. Howard avenged its earlier loss in the season to the Cubs with the only other loss coming against Viborg-Hurley. It’s a daunting task for the Tigers to even just stay with the Eagles, but the Tigers have been the underdogs and road time twice already in the playoffs.
The 11B game will be the midafternoon contest as both teams come in undefeated as the Elk Point-Jefferson Huskies face the St. Thomas More Cavaliers. Both offense consistently are scoring near the 40s every week while the Huskies defense is averaging just more points given up over the course of the playoffs. Elk Point-Jefferson barely survived a 43-36 game against Deuel on Friday while St. Thomas More won by 36 over Clark/Willow Lake with a 50-14 win, the highest amount of points given up in the playoffs and all season since the 28-14 win over Sioux Valley to open the season. The Cavaliers are looking for its first ever state title while Elk Point-Jefferson won its last title in 2022.
Kickoff is at 10:00 AM for Wall and Howard and then at 2:00 for Elk Point-Jefferson and St. Thomas More at the DakotaDome in Vermillion.
Comments