Mike Kraft/MDN Minot North’s Cooper Chick leads the rushing game with 332 yards and two touchdowns on 45 carries. There will be plenty of running plays called Friday night when Minot North and Watford City meet.

Don’t expect to see many footballs in the air Friday night in Watford City when top-ranked Minot North visits the Wolves for a Class AA West Region matchup.

Jacob Holmen and the Sentinels like to run the ball. Jim Dooley and the Wolves really like to run the ball, and both do it effectively.

Minot North’s run-to-pass ratio so far this season is right around 80 percent, handing the ball off 236 times and dropping back to pass on 60 other occasions. Watford City’s run-to-pass ratio is just slightly under 90 percent, choosing to keep the ball on the ground 208 times paired with just 24 passing attempts.

Watford City (3-2 overall, 1-0 West Region) has already seen marked improvement under Dooley, the former longtime Beulah head coach, in just his second season. The Wolves finished last season 1-8, which included a 45-6 loss to the Sentinels. Watford City has already surpassed its highest win total since 2017 just five games into the season following a 20-14 victory over Dickinson last week. Since its 7-4 campaign in 2017, the Wolves had won a combined seven games over the past seven seasons, which included two winless years.

“They were much smaller,” Holmen said. “Coach Dooley is very good in the weight room and gets kids to buy into that place. Their size is impressive and they have added some speed from last year. You’re running that system and I’m sure it’s a challenge for everyone because they didn’t do anything like that in prior years. It’s a learning curve and they look like a team who has experienced what the offense is like, what they want to do defensively and their size and strength is contributing to that.”

Leading the resurgence is a two-headed monster in the backfield along with a quality third option. Rhylie Ledahl-Berger has been the primary workhorse for the Wolves, amassing 690 yards and nine touchdowns on 106 carries. He’s had two four-touchdown games already this season and eclipsed the 200-yard mark against Wahpeton.

Trysten DeVries has been a solid compliment to Ledahl-Berger, boasting a 12.2 yards per carry average. He’s carried the ball 41 times for 501 yards and four touchdowns and is coming off his best statistical game of the year when he rushed for 163 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries against Dickinson.

Jayden Waggoner provides a quality third option in the backfield. Waggoner has compiled 258 yards and two touchdowns on 27 carries. His breakout game came against Grand Forks Central when he went over the century mark with 121 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries. As a unit, the Wolves have put up 1,700 yards of total offense, with 1,587 of those coming through the run game.

“They are good teammates for each other,” Holmen said. “With the misdirection stuff, they will carry out fakes. They are probably being told that they should be getting tackled on every single play whether you have the ball or not. They share the ball a lot. They will throw occasionally, but most of the time it’s going to be handed to one of those guys and they run hard, and they have good, big linemen up front who are physical. It will be a matchup of two physical teams, so we’re excited to play some smashmouth football.”

Minot North (5-0, 1-0) has already matched up against a similar style of offense earlier this season when they played Fargo North. Much like the Spartans, Watford City runs a lot of misdirection. The Wolves don’t try to fool opposing defenses into thinking they aren’t going to run the ball. Instead, they just challenge them to try and stop them.

“They pack it in tight,” Holmen said. “They have really tight splits with their linemen. They sometimes will go into an empty look but have a lot of wings and fullbacks. They are trying to get your eyes into the backfield and watch something you’re not supposed to be watching. We have to really key in on what coach Rudolph’s telling our guys to read and if one guy doesn’t do his job, things can go south really quick. It’s a big week for being disciplined.”

The Sentinels are no slouch in the running department themself, they just do it more by committee, with five different players carrying the ball at least 20 times and seven players with more than 10. Cooper Chick leads the group with 332 yards and two touchdowns on 45 attempts, followed by Cole Richeson with 218 on 30 carries. Six players have amassed at least 100 yards on the ground and Minot North as a team has compiled 1,395 rushing yards on 236 carries for a 5.9 yards per carry average. Eighteen of the Sentinels’ 22 offensive touchdowns have come on the ground.

The running backs and other skill positions tend to get the notoriety, but it’s the guys up front who deserve just as much of the credit.

“We play six offensive linemen throughout the game and rotate those guys and have a couple more guys who are getting closer to being ready to play,” Holmen said. “Those guys are Tyler Steele, Max Hall, Andres Good, Gabe Mendez, Ethan Howey and Gavyn McKeithan. And our tight end is a really good player. He doesn’t catch a lot of balls for us, but he’s maybe the best blocker on our team – Will Bentley. We lean on Will a lot to do some stuff for us. He’s a physical kid that goes and gets linebackers for us.”

While Watford City quarterbacks Baylor Salas and Wyatt Boekelman have just 113 passing yards and one touchdown between them on 12 completions, Minot North signal caller Breyden Blikre has aired it out for 409 yards and four touchdowns on 29 completions.

The Wolves may have a slight statistical advantage in the running game, but the ability to stop opposing offenses favors the Sentinels. Minot North enters Friday’s game allowing just 5.6 points per game, compared to Watford City, which has surrendered 23.2 points per game, including 40 to Grand Forks Central and 41 to Central Cass.

The Sentinels are coming off a 28-0 victory over St. Mary’s in their conference opener, their second shutout of the season. They forced a pair of interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown by Harrison Schaefer. Minot North also recorded four sacks and allowed just 226 yards of total offense. For the season, the Sentinels have limited opponents to 240.4 total yards and 118.4 rushing yards per game. Watford City averages 317.4 rushing yards per game.

“They prepare very, very hard,” Holmen said. “It’s almost every single day during their lunch period, they are sitting with coach Rudolph and watching film and going through things. It’s a testament to their preparation. We don’t have a lot of guys that are very flashy. If you look at our defensive stats, things are spread out fairly evenly. We don’t have a guy who’s getting a million tackles or any guy who has a ton of sacks or tackles for loss. Eleven guys are contributing to the defensive side of the ball. We play a lot of kids on defense. We’re trying to keep the kids fresh so they can fly around.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. in Watford City.