Kenyon-Wanamingo Football Advances to Section Final

The Kenyon-Wanamingo Knights dominated time of possession while defeating New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva 21-12 Monday night in The Moat.

It was the final home game of the season for the Knights and their 13 seniors.

After a scoreless first quarter, Kenyon-Wanamingo capped off a 17-play 87-yard drive with a 17-yard touchdown pass from Jack Buelke to Matthew Houglum. The extra point kick was no good and it was 6-0 Knights.

On the next Kenyon-Wanamingo series, the junior quarterback hit Calvin Steberg for a 12-yard score and then completed the two-point coversion pass to Gavin Roosen and the Knights were up 14-0. That was the score at the half with my very unofficial statistics showing the Knights running 37 plays to the Panthers' 16 in the first half.

NRHEG got the ball to start the second half with the wind at their back and tried to throw a pass on the second play only to see it picked off by sophomore Tyler Ryan.

Kenyon-Wanamingo turned it right back over and on the second play of that series the Panthers senior quarterback Sam Prigge hit sophomore receiver Sawyer Vanmeldaghem for a 43-yard scoring strike. The extra point kick was no good but it was 14-6.

After stopping the Knights and forcing a punt, NRHEG appeared to have momentum swinging their way.

The Panthers were moving the football when Kenyon-Wanamingo's Houglum jumped a route and intercepted the ball taking it about 65 yards for a score with 2:30 to go in the third quarter. Knights head coach Jake Wieme told KDHL after the game it was probably the play of the contest.

My very unofficial statistics had Kenyon-Wanamingo running 37 plays in the first half and NRHEG running 16 offensive plays.

The Knights finished their Halloween win by intercepting Prigge twice in the fourth quarter to make it four picks on the night.

The defensive players who had those interceptions -- Gavin Roosen, Matthew Houglum, Tyler Ryan and Bradley Kish -- were named our Sviggum Insurance Agency defensive players of the game and the Knights offensive line -- composed of seniors Payton Hilke and Logan Dewitz, juniors Logan Quam and Chase Washburn and sophomore Kaya Lindell -- were the Sviggum Insurance Agency offensive players of the game for Kenyon-Wanamingo.

Top seed Maple River got by Blue Earth Area 21-13 to set up a rematch of last year's semifinal thriller in Maple River. The section title game will have a 1PM kickoff in New Ulm on Saturday.