Cook County Vikings football fans that sport some gray hair may remember the early years of ABC’s Monday Night Football. When it was clear that one of the teams wasn’t going to come back from too great a deficit announcer “Dandy” Don Meredith would begin to sing the refrain, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over…”
Unfortunately for the Vikings, if “Dandy Don” had been announcing the Section 7A quarterfinal game between the #2 seeded Ogilvie Lions and the #6 seeded Vikings he most likely would’ve started singing by the end of the third quarter in the Vikings’ 40-6 loss.
The opening round playoff game was played at Ogilvie on Tuesday, October 27 under great conditions for football. Weather wasn’t a problem, but the Lions’ power running game was.
The game was played the week leading to Halloween, but the favored Lions didn’t have to use any trickery. They kept it simple by lining up, snapping the ball and running it down the throats of the Vikings’ defense. The name of the game is blocking and tackling and in the end the Lions did a better job of both. Ogilvie running backs were able to take advantage of great blocking and simply overpowered the Vikings.
Photo by Bruce Johnson ~ brucejohnsonphoto.com Wrapping up the season are seniors (L-R, front) Raul Piccone, Alex Senty, James Groth, Jacob Rude, Christian Cole. (L-R, back) Mike Austin, Korey Thoreson, Darryl Hansen, Brock Hommerding, Cody Anderson, Skyler Johnson, Kipp Sande.
One of this reporter’s favorite Super Bowls featured the running of John Riggins for the Washington Redskins. In that game Riggins lined up behind his offensive line, nicknamed the “Hogs,” took the handoff and ran behind the blocks to a Super Bowl win. Everyone watching and playing knew what was coming, but the defense just couldn’t do anything about it. The play of Ogilvie against our Vikings was reminiscent of that kind of power football.
Head Coach Mitch Dorr said, “Ogilvie just proved to be more physically dominating. Their size and strength overpowered us. We now need to get in the weight room!”
Earlier in the year, the Lions beat the Vikings 52-8 so the Vikings’ defense fared better against the Lions this time around, but offensively the Vikings had trouble sustaining drives.
After forcing the Vikings to go three-and-out in the game’s opening possession, the Lions received the Vikings’ punt and marched 74 yards in 18 plays for a touchdown in a very time consuming drive.
The Vikings’ second possession also went three-andout. After the punt the Lions ground out a nine-play 48-yard drive for their second touchdown.
The Vikings stopped both two-point conversion attempts by the Lions, but with 9:50 to go in the second quarter, the Lions were leading 12-0 and were kicking off to the Vikings for the third time.
The Vikings needed to score badly because this game was looking like a snowball rolling downhill and that’s just what they were able to do!
After the Lions’ kickoff, the Vikings started on their 33-yard line and two running plays of three yards and six yards respectively by Kipp Sande set up a thirdand one at the 42. Maybe it was Halloween, because the Lions decided to get tricky. They came on the blitz and the Vikings caught them with a quick hitter. Sande popped through the hole in the line (quicker than a wet pumpkin seed squeezed between your fingers) and instantly had most of the Lions’ defense behind him. He raced for the end zone and when the only Lion with a chance to tackle him missed him at the ten-yard line, Sande cruised into the end zone for the touchdown. Thepoint-after failed, but the 58-yard “touchdown treat” gave the Vikings new life at 12-6 with 6:05 to go before the half.
After the touchdown, the Vikings excitement went from high to low, when on the ensuing kickoff sophomore Dylan Quaife made a touchdownsaving tackle near midfield, but suffered a leg injury that didn’t allow him to return to the game. Quaife was a major playmaker for the Vikings this season. He was freshman quarterback Kale Boomer’s favorite target for passes, so losing Quaife’s services was a big setback.
Coach Dorr said, “The loss of Dylan Quaife early in the second quarter really hurt! We had a lot of plays for him that we couldn’t use.”
After the injury timeout, the Lions kept it going and drove 51 yards in six plays with running back Michael Anderson finishing off the drive with a 21-yard TD run. (Coach Dorr considers Anderson the best running back the Vikings have faced this year.)
The two-point conversion was good, making the score 20-6 which was the score at the half.
Ogilvie received the kickoff to start the second half. They powered their way on a 61-yard 13-play touchdown drive that took over seven minutes off the clock and made the score 28-6.
The lights were dimming and the party was nearly over for the 2009 Vikings, but they did have one last dance when senior Brock Hommerding returned the Lions’ kickoff 31 yards and Boomer hooked up with senior wide-out James Groth on a 48-yard pass play.
Groth caught the ball with his fingertips and ran down the right sideline, but was knocked out of bounds at the one-yard line. The Vikings had four downs to score, but the Lions’ defense held. When Boomer slipped to the ground on fourth down for a six-yard loss, the party—and the Vikings’ season—was essentially over.
TheLions scored two more times in the fourth quarter to make the final 40-6. They have since moved on in the playoffs with a win over Barnum and will face #1 seeded East Central in the Section 7A Championship game in Duluth.
Sande led the Vikings offensively with 71 yards rushing on seven carries with a touchdown and defensively finished first in tackles with 23.
With the season over it’s sadly time to say goodbye to seniors Jacob Rude, Brock Hommerding, Alex Senty, Kipp Sande, James Groth, Darryl Hansen, Korey Thoreson, Mike Austin, Raul Piccione, Christian Cole and Cody Anderson. Thanks for the memories boys and for all of your contributions to the success of Vikings football! We fans appreciate all of your hard work.
Go Vikes!
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