Mike Kraft/MDN Kye Schlichting and West Fargo Sheyenne were one of many teams in Class AAA and Class AA that waited until the final day of the season to punch its ticket to the postseason. The Mustangs are the No. 4 seed out of the East Region and will play West Region No. 1 Bismarck Century in the Class AAA quarterfinals.

There was plenty on the line for a number of Class AAA and Class AA teams heading into the final day of the regular season.

Most of the drama was set to take place on the eastern side of the state, as playoff spots were still on the line. Only two teams in the Class AAA East Region had clinched playoff spots with three teams still alive fighting for the other two. The same was true in the Class AA East Region.

There was still uncertainty in the West as well, but the four teams to represent both Class AAA and Class AA in the postseason had already been decided. It was just a matter of seeding that needed to be sorted out.

Starting in the West Region of Class AAA, Bismarck High, Bismarck Century, Bismarck Legacy and Mandan all knew entering their regular season finales that they were heading to the postseason. The Demons and Patriots couldn’t finish lower than the No. 2 seed and the Sabers and Braves couldn’t finish higher than the No. 3 seed. Everything was made even easier to figure out since Bismarck High and Century were playing each other as were Legacy and Mandan.

In the battle of the two unbeaten teams in region play, Century blocked the potential game-tying extra point late in the fourth quarter and was able to run out the clock to win the WDA title and earn the No. 1 seed with a 14-13 victory. Bismarck High will be the No. 2 seed. Legacy had an easier time with Mandan, claiming the No. 3 seed with a 34-12 victory.

Over in Class AA, Minot North was the only team in the West Region to know it’s seeding heading into the final week. The Sentinels had clinched the No. 1 with their win over Jamestown the week prior. Everything else had yet to be decided between Devils Lake, Bismarck St. Mary’s and Watford City.

Devils Lake scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:20 remaining in the fourth quarter on a 13-yard rushing touchdown from Bryar Exner in a 43-36 win over Watford City to give them the No. 2 seed. The Wolves had to settle for the No. 4 seed behind St. Mary’s, which ended the season with three straight conference wins for the No. 3 seed.

Now to the main event, beginning in the East Region for Class AAA. Entering Friday’s games, Fargo Davies and West Fargo Horace had clinched playoff spots and West Fargo Sheyenne and Fargo Shanley occupied the other two postseason positions. West Fargo was also still alive, a game back of Sheyenne and Shanley.

West Fargo defeated Sheyenne, 28-7, on the road and Fargo Shanley dropped a 53-47 contest in overtime, putting West Fargo, Sheyenne and Shanley in a three-way tie. The Packers won the No. 3 seed based on a point differential tiebreaker and Sheyenne claimed the No. 4 seed on a head-to-head tiebreaker with Shanley, meaning the Deacons would miss the postseason for the first time since 2019.

It was a lot of the same in Class AA for the East Region. Kindred and Central Cass were already both in the postseason, but were meeting to decide the EDC champion. The Vikings would take the crown and complete an undefeated regular season. Meanwhile, Grand Forks Central, Grand Forks Red River and Fargo South were all still alive for the final two spots. The Roughriders would jump all the way to the No. 2 seed with a victory over Grand Forks Central or miss the playoffs altogether with a loss coupled with a Fargo South win against Wahpeton.

Red River lost, giving Central Cass the No. 2 seed and the Knights the No. 3 seed. But the Roughriders lucked out as Wahpeton upset Fargo South, 30-19, for its first victory of the season, handing Red River the No. 4 seed. The Huskies entered their season finale having lost their last four games by a combined score of 191-47.

Bottineau earns first 11-man playoff victory as chalk prevails in Class A opening round

Bottineau got its first taste of playoff victory in 2021 in its only season playing 9-man football. That season, the Stars finished 10-1, went undefeated during the regular season and won a pair of postseason contests to advance to the state semifinal before suffering their lone loss of the season to LaMoure.

The Stars returned to 11-man football the following year and made the postseason two of the following three years, but were bounced from the playoffs in the opening round in both instances. Since 1975, Bottineau had only been to the 11-man playoffs five times and were 0-5. Now, the Stars are 1-5 after claiming their first 11-man postseason win on the back of their defense, eliminating Central McLean, 24-6, to advance to the quarterfinals against Ellendale.

Bottineau’s defense is allowing just 9.4 points per game through 10 games, having not allowed more than 24 points in a game all season. The Stars have allowed fewer than 10 points in each of their last three games.

Bottineau’s victory was its ninth of the season, setting a new program best in 11-man. Its previous record was eight games in 2022 and 2011.

Fellow Region 3 member Des Lacs-Burlington saw its season end in a tightly contested game at Dickinson Trinity, 13-6. It was the Lakers’ closest game with Dickinson Trinity since posting their only win in the series back in 1994. The Titans have now won 15 of 16 career meetings.

The two teams were tied 6-6 at halftime before Dickinson Trinity scored the only touchdown of the second half in the third quarter on a 3-yard run by Jordan Ham with 7:55 left in the stanza.

The eight top seeds all advanced to the quarterfinals.

Previously undefeated Alexander upset in 9-man first round

The Class A playoff opening round was all chalk, but 9-man was not. Three of the top-eight seeds went down, including previously unbeaten Alexander. The Comets saw their hopes of a state title come to an immediate end with a 36-22 loss to Napoleon/Gackle-Streeter.

Alexander’s 22 points was its fewest all season for a team that averaged 42.7 points per game entering the postseason.

The Imperials jumped all over the Comets early, scoring the game’s first 30 points and led 30-0 at halftime. Bryce Schneider tossed four first-half touchdowns and five for the game. Jackson Piatz caught a pair of touchdowns, the second going for 58 yards.

Napoleon /G-S will now travel to No. 5 seed Hankinson in the quarterfinals.

Grant County/Flasher and South Border also went on the road and came away with victories. Grant County/Flasher dominated Divide County, 48-13, and South Border toppled North Border, 43-26.

Grant County/Flasher used the big play to jump out to a 22-0 lead after the first quarter. Zach Bonogofsky opened the scoring on a 44-yard TD run and then Kelton Friesz hit Kiernan Fleck for an 80-yard TD pass. Elijah Ottmar capped off the first quarter with an 84-yard TD run.

Ottmar finished with three rushing touchdowns and Darron Frank added two in the second half.

The South claimed the Border War behind three rushing touchdowns from Berkley Frantz and two from Joseph Keller. North Border cut South Border’s lead down to 10 following back-to-back touchdown runs from Kaden Moore, but South Border closed the door in the fourth on Keller’s second score of the contest.

The three remaining undefeated teams in 9-man – New Rockford-Sheyenne-Maddock, LaMoure-Litchville-Marion and Linton-HMB – all rolled into the quarterfinals, winning by a combined score of 206-30.

Trenton, Drayton to meet for 6-man title

The top teams in 6-man will meet for the championship on Saturday, Nov. 1, when No. 1 Trenton hosts No. 2 Drayton in a rematch of last year’s title game. Trenton defeated Drayton last year, 76-50.

The Tigers are two weeks removed from a 20-19 victory against Drayton to close out the regular season and secure the No. 1 spot for the four-team postseason. Trenton has won its last three meetings with the Bombers and are 6-1 all-time. The Tigers have won 19 consecutive games entering the title game and are 35-10 since joining 6-man in 2021. They are averaging 52 points per game.

Trenton held off upset-minded Center-Stanton, winning 32-26 in overtime. Drayton was also locked in a tight game, but escaped with a 55-47 victory over New Town.

The Bombers have won 15 straight games against teams not named Trenton. They have dominated the rest of the field this season, outscoring their opponents 557-134.

Class AAA playoff format draws some online discord

As a sports journalist working in North Dakota, I’ll admit that my Twitter/X algorithm is a bit different than most people my age that use the social media platform. While most people see posts about popular Halloween costumes or the best soup recipes for the cold weather, I saw a few posts expressing their displeasure over the current way playoff spots are determined in football, specifically as it relates to Class AAA.

The main reason for their discontent is due to Fargo Shanley missing out on the postseason despite being 6-3 overall, while teams like West Fargo (3-6), West Fargo Sheyenne (4-5) and Mandan (2-7) all having the opportunity to participate in the postseason. West Fargo, Sheyenne and Shanley all finished 2-3 in the EDC, but the Packers and Mustangs received the final two spots on tiebreakers.

Honestly, this might just be one of those anomaly years and next year everything will fall into place and no discord will ensue as a result. It’s like the old days of the College Football Playoff when it was just four teams. Some years there were four teams that were clearly better than the rest of the field, and there were some years where there were five or six teams deserving of a spot. So I don’t think anything actually needs to be changed about the way playoff teams are determined, but if I was in charge of creating a new method that had to be instituted, I’ve got a couple of ideas.

Idea 1: Have each team play all of its conference opponents twice – home and away – and do away with non-conference games. If games against the opposing conference are going to be viewed as nothing more than preseason games when determining playoff positioning, we might as well just do away with them altogether instead of having four such games each year. It would require starting the season a week early to accommodate an extra game because it would require each team to play 10 games during the regular season. They currently play a nine-game schedule. I’d rather do it this way than keep the nine-game schedule and have each team play an unbalanced conference schedule, because it would require computers and formulas and algorithms to get involved and I want to avoid that headache if possible.

Idea 2: Overall record is the ultimate determination of where a team sits in the standings, not conference record. With this idea, we keep the four non-conference games to begin the season and then each team plays one game each against their five conference opponents for a nine-game schedule. Therefore, the calendar doesn’t have to be altered. But as a way to not fully devalue the conference games, the conference champion receives an automatic bid to the playoffs and a top-two seed. The conference champion with the better record gets the No. 1 seed and the other conference champion gets the No. 2 seed even if their overall record isn’t as good as the second-place finisher in the other conference. From there, the conferences go away and the remaining 10 teams are ordered 3-10 based on their overall record. If there is a two-team tie, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head. If the two teams didn’t meet, then the conference record is the next tiebreaker. In the case of a multi-team tie, the first tiebreaker used would be conference record. If teams are still tied, then we’ll do something based on point differential or something like that.

Idea 3: Leave it as is and use it as a teaching moment that sometimes life isn’t fair and you just have to roll with the punches. It’s not the end of the world.