Blooming Prairie Flying High Heading into Section Final

Blooming Prairie looks to repeat as section champions when they face Goodhue Friday night, November 1 at 7 pm at Wally Hitt Field at Triton High School in Dodge Center. It's the third straight year the Awesome Blossoms and Wildcats meet in the finals. BP won 21-18 last year, while Goodhue triumphed 19-14 in 2017. Friday's game will be heard on Kat Kountry 105 FM and on the Kat Kountry 105 app. The Garage Force of Faribault "Football Blitz" will air afterward with scores and reports from around Southeast Minnesota.

Blooming Prairie is averaging nearly 50 points per game, but were held to roughly half that figure in a 27-6 win at Goodhue. That was, by far, the closest game of the season for the 9-0 Blossoms. The Widcats (8-2) have had four games decided by one score. Their other loss was 8-7 at Rushford-Peterson. Goodhue turned the tables on the Trojans in Saturday's semifinals with a 34-18 in Rushford.

BP quarterback Kaden Thomas had a career-day in their 56-27 win over Randolph in the semifinals with 393 yards passing and seven touchdowns, according to stats published by the Austin Daily Herald. Mitchell Fiebiger caught three passes, each going for a score while adding up to 119 yards. Alex Baldwin had nine receptions for 119 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Gabe Hagen and Zach Weber each caught a touchdown pass as well.

In a recent interview, Awesome Blossoms coach Chad Gimbel was asked about playing a team for the second time the same season after winning the first one, "It's always a challenge. But I think we do a good job of addressing that in just pointing out the number of times that it happens throughout a season where one team wins and wins by quite a bit and turns around and loses in the playoffs. Your kids have got to stay focused."

The winner will advance to the state Class A quarterfinals to be held on Saturday, November 9 at Janesville at 12 pm. Their opponent will be Springfield or Martin County West from Section 3A who are playing their championship game at 4:30 pm Friday at Southwest Minnesota State.