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Trivial beatdown

MHS football smacks Roughriders 47-15 on senior night

Submitted Photo Minot High's Creighton Rudolph (17) throws a pass downfield during a high school football game Wednesday at Duane Carlson Stadium in Minot. Photo courtesy of Sean Arbaut.

There wasn’t much to play for Wednesday night, as the Minot High School football team was already guaranteed its 21st consecutive playoff appearance and locked into the No. 3 seed out of the West Region.

But, on senior night, the Magicians (6-3, 4-2 WDA) still wanted to put on a worthy closing performance for what was likely their last home game of the season at Duane Carlson Stadium.

Against a winless Grand Forks Red River (0-9, 0-6 EDA) team, the Magi capped the regular season with a dominating 47-15 nonconference victory.

“We challenged them here, this back half of the season,” MHS coach Barry Holmen said. “We have to play at a high level. It doesn’t matter who our opponent is. If you want to give yourself a decent chance in the playoffs, then you have to come in on a high. I was very pleased, we executed a lot of things very well tonight.”

After forcing a punt on the Roughriders first drive, Minot opened the scoring with an 86-yard drive. Nearly half of those yards came on the 42-yard touchdown pass from senior Creighton Rudolph to senior Peyton Lamoureux, who dragged his defender into the end zone with him. The PAT was blocked.

Minot High's Adrian Davis-Aguilar (21) runs in open field. Photo courtesy of Sean Arbaut. Submitted photo

Rudolph finished with three touchdown passes before sitting out the entire second half.

“It was kind of a preparation for the playoffs,” Rudolph said. “You got to fine tune some things and it’s really a positive sign when you can go out and do some good things right before the playoffs. Get that last bit of cohesion, so it was good for us to come out and play well.”

GFRR responded quickly after Minot’s first score and took its only lead of the night on a 25-yard touchdown run by Landon Haagenson and the made the extra point, 7-6.

That was matched by Minot senior Adrian Davis-Aguilar with a 33-yard rumble right up the middle for a touchdown to restore the Magi’s lead. Kyler Stenberg made the PAT this time around, 13-7, with 1:42 left in the opening quarter.

“Senior night, a big night for a lot of us out here,” Davis-Aguilar said. “We wanted to come out and have a strong showing and make some great memories at Duane Carlson one last time.”

Submitted Photo Grand Forks Red River's Brett Klefstad (44) watches a pass sail over his head. Photo courtesy of Sean Arbaut.

Minot squeezed out one more touchdown in the first quarter after another GFRR punt. Rudolph lofted up a deep ball to senior Lofton Klabunde for a 55-yard touchdown with one second left in the quarter. The two-point pass conversation came up short, 19-7.

“It was a good night for us,” Rudolph said about senior night. “A lot of the seniors were joking that we might start tearing up… I’ll be good, but maybe a little bit later when it starts to sink in.”

A catch by junior Mason Sys set up a 21-yard touchdown run for senior Brett Davis to give Minot a commanding 26-7 lead with 5:31 left in the second quarter.

Minot was back in the end zone 54 seconds later, much thanks to another deep ball that landed in the arms of Stenberg to get the Magi into the red zone. Davis-Aguilar finished it off with a 9-yard run for his second touchdown of the night, 33-7.

“I was just thinking, watch for the holes and trust the linemen,” Davis-Aguilar said. “That’s what I did and there were some big holes that they made. I just followed them like I’m supposed to do.”

Testing out the two-minute offense, the Magi put together another scoring drive at the end of the second quarter. Rudolph hit Klabunde for a 39-yard touchdown strike to make it 34 unanswered points and gave Minot a 40-7 lead at halftime.

“There is never a goal like that,” Holmen said about getting a 30-point lead before halftime to get the second half running clock right away. “It didn’t hurt us to run our two-minute offense. I like that because you are going to have to do those kind of things (in the playoffs). We are not looking to roll anybody. We just want to execute our stuff.”

Holmen emptied out his bench at the start of the second half.

With the running clock, Minot drained eight and a half minutes on the first drive of the third quarter before backup quarterback Cade Tate rolled out of the pocket for a 22-yard touchdown run.

“We put a nice drive together in the third quarter with a lot of twos in there,” Holmen said. “We got great experience for those immediate backups and had some success. That was awesome.”

The Roughriders got a consolation touchdown by Haagenson with 6:56 remaining in regulation. He also ran in the two-point attempt on the same play as the touchdown.

The Magi didn’t score in the fourth quarter, but a fumble recovery by Logan Fisher sealed the victory at 47-15.

Minot didn’t know who or where they were going to be traveling next week for the first round of the Class AAA playoffs until shortly after the game, as Fargo South and West Fargo Sheyenne squared off Wednesday night to decide who would finish second or third in the EDA Standings.

Sheyenne won 21-20 to nab the No. 2 seed out the East Region, and will host Minot next week Friday (Oct. 27) in West Fargo.

Alex Eisen covers Minot High School, Minot State athletics and high school sports. Follow him on Twitter @AEisen13.

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