NEW SALEM – In 1986, on a very cold Saturday afternoon in November at Bismarck’s Hughes Field, Steve Kleinjan, a Dickinson State sophomore, was on the sidelines helping his former coach Florian Roehrich and watching his younger brother, Troy Kleinjan, quarterback the New Salem-Almont Holsteins to a 28-14 victory over Turtle Lake-Mercer in the Class B 9-man football state championship game.

This coming Friday, in the comfortable confines of the Fargodome, Kleinjan will be on the sidelines coaching up the New Salem-Almont-Glen Ullin Holsteins, who earned a spot in the 2016 9-man state championship game with a 38-14 semifinal victory over North Prairie on Saturday afternoon.

No. 5-ranked New Salem-AGU, 10-1 and winner of its last 10 games, will take on No. 1 Thompson in the 9-man final. Kickoff is scheduled for noon. Thompson (11-0) defeated Shiloh Christian 44-30 in Saturday’s other semifinal.

The Holsteins haven’t had a team in a state championship football game since that 1986 season.

“I can’t tell you what this means to me, the communities, the schools and the kids. All of the hard work it takes to get this far and wow, what a reward,” said Kleinjan, who has been a head coach for 20 seasons. “These kids deserve this. They’ve had a fantastic year, and what an effort today.”

Senior tight end-defensive end Shane Forster said the 2016 Holsteins started the season the same way the 1986 team did.

“They started practice at midnight on the first day. That’s what we decided to do this year,” said Forster, who caught six passes for 131 yards and a touchdown in the semifinal win. “Coming in, we knew we had the talent to have a good year and we wanted to get it going as early as possible. We knew how many years it had been since New Salem was in a state championship game, and we figured, ‘Why not us?’ Today we ended that drought, and we’re hoping to end another next week.”

It was an equally proud day for the Glen Ullin school and community, said Glen Ullin High School senior Bailey Morman.

“We’ll all excited. The whole town has been behind this football team from the start,” said Morman, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound defensive tackle and the Holsteins’ leading tackler. “It means a lot to have a team playing for a state championship.”

The Holsteins dominated Saturday’s semifinal – except for a 57-second stretch late in the first half during which the previously-unbeaten Cougars (10-1) scored two quick touchdowns, trimming a 24-0 New Salem-AGU lead to 24-14.

New Salem-AGU scored its first touchdown on its second possession – a 1-yard sneak by quarterback Evan Henke, capping a 7-play, 60-yard drive. Henke, a sophomore, broke loose for a 33-yard gain that put the ball on the North Prairie 11. He later passed to Forster for the 2-point conversion.

After forcing a North Prairie punt, the Holsteins made it 16-0 on a 65-yard touchdown pass from Henke to Forster, and a Henke 2-point run.

The Cougars punted again on their next possession, and New Salem-AGU proceeded to march 66 yards to paydirt in seven plays, scoring on Noah Thiel’s 4-yard run. Henke’s second 2-point run extended the Holsteins’ lead to 24-0 with 3:06 remaining in the first half.

The North Prairie offense, which came in averaging 51.4 points per game, finally broke through after the ensuing kickoff. On the fourth play of the possession, quarterback Brody Cahill found Jared Loing for a 38-yard score with 1:14 left. That same combination connected for the extra two points.

The Holsteins started their next possession at midfield following Garret Soupir’s 25-yard kickoff return. Two plays after Henke threw a 21-yard pass to Tanner Slag, Carson Wilkes intercepted the New Salem-AGU quarterback in the end zone with under 50 seconds remaining. Two snaps later, Gabe Leonard darted 65 yards to the Holsteins’ 15, and on the following play, Brody scored on a keeper with 17.7 seconds left to make it 24-14.

The Cougars headed into halftime with momentum on their side, but Forster said there was no need to panic.

“We had some breakdowns. They’re a good team and you know they’re going to make plays,” he said. “They had the momentum, but we talked about coming out in the second half and taking it back. We played great for most of the (first) half. We had to get back to playing that way again.”

The Cougars moved the ball on each of their first two second-half possessions, but fumbled on the New Salem-AGU 32 (recovered by Forster) and were held on downs on the Holsteins’ 20. New Salem-AGU then put together a 16-play drive that stalled on the North Prairie 6. The Cougars took over with just under four minutes remaining in the game after a march that consumed nearly nine minutes.

“We didn’t get any points on that drive, but it was huge because it took a lot of time off the clock and made it tougher for them to make a comeback,” Kleinjan said. “They were still very much in it, but you feel a little more comfortable with a 10-point lead with under four minutes to go.”

The Cougars went on to turn the ball over on downs on their own 9 with 2:32 left, and 11 seconds later, Soupir broke free for a 9-yard scoring run.

The next North Prairie possession ended on the Cougars’ 28, and Soupir later added a 28-yard scoring run with 1:31 remaining. Thiel’s 2-point run capped the scoring.

Henke completed 10 of 16 passes for 182 yards for the Holsteins, who racked up 370 total yards. Soupir rushed for 70 yards on 12 carries, and Henke, Thiel and Dawsen Bueligen added 54, 38 and 26, respectively.

The Cougars finished with 323 total yards – 233 rushing and 90 passing. Leonard had 147 yards on 18 carries, and Cahill gained 78 on 18 keepers. Cahill also completed seven of 17 passes for 90 yards.

North Prairie picked up 138 yards in the final three minutes of the first half.

“Besides that, I thought our defense did a great job. Every one of our guys did what he was supposed to do,” Morman said. “They’re an offense that scores a lot of points, but we held them to two touchdowns and made stops the other times they had the ball. Our defense has played really well this year.”

The Holsteins have allowed two touchdowns or less in each of their last eight games.