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The Vikings beat Benilde-St. Margaret's 38-27 on Thursday, November 9 to punch their ticket to U.S. Bank Stadium and the state semifinals next week.

They'll take on Hutchinson on Friday, November 17 at 4:30 p.m.

For a full story on the BSM game, check out next week's edition of the Chisago County Press.

Here's the section championship recap of the Vikes' win over Hermantown:

North Branch’s football team has been resilient all year. 

They’ve lost two starting running backs to season ending injuries, bounced back from a season-opening blowout loss to Pequot Lakes to win eight straight games and had won three one-score games so far this year. 

So, it’s no surprise that the Vikings won a one-score game over Hermantown in the section championship on Friday, November 3 in Duluth Denfeld, and they had to do it without star running back Carter Drill, who was injured in the first half.

The big game started out great for the Vikings. Their defense forced a three and out on the first possession of the game for the Hawks before their offense marched 12 plays and 72 yards to open the scoring. It was a classic rush heavy NB drive, with only one of the plays going for double digit yards, which was a rumble by Drill up the middle to bring NB inside of Hermantown’s 25 yard line. North Branch also converted a fourth and four on the drive with a six yard run from Jacob Robillard. The drive was capped off by a nine yard touchdown rush from junior running back Tyler Minke. Brody Beaver’s extra point was good, and the Vikes had a 7-0 lead. 

The Vikings defense, which has been so stout this year, had a rare breakdown on the next drive. Hermantown’s running back Martin Sleen took a pretty basic handoff around the left side to the far sideline and although the Vikes looked like they had him pinned to the out of bounds line for just a moderate game, he slithered down the line, staying in bounds and racing for a 66 yard touchdown. The Hawks’ extra point was good and the game was quickly tied 7-7.

North Branch’s offense, though, countered with another long drive. Drill’s 15 yard bruising run up the right side highlighted another 12 play drive for the Vikings. This one spanned 74 yards and was finished off with another nine yard touchdown dash from Minke. The back had an easy first seven yards on the touchdown run before bowling over a Hermantown defender in violent fashion to finish off the score. Beaver’s point after was good and NB was up 14-7.

The Hawks again answered, this time using chunk plays on the ground and from their scrambling quarterback Alex Schott, with the junior finishing the drive off with a seven yard touchdown run. Their extra point was good and the game knotted at 14-14.

Hermantown, much like the first game these two teams played, continued to do a good job of limiting North Branch’s big plays, but in doing so, they kept giving up the slow, steady drives that tire a defense out. The Vikings engineered their third straight 12 play scoring drive, with big runs from Drill and Robillard highlighting it. Minke punched in his third touchdown of the game, this one from two yards out, and the Vikings reclaimed the lead. They attempted a two point conversion this time, but Hermantown snuffed it out and the Vikes led 20-14.

The defense for NB did coax another stop out of the Hermantown offense, which was big to not allow them to tie it up or take the lead at half. The offense tried to muster a scoring drive before halftime, but they ran out of time just past midfield, giving them the six point cushion heading into the break.

On the opening drive of the second half, North Branch was moving the ball again, and had entered Hermantown territory, but a questionable illegal high-low block call by the refs resulted in a 15 yard penalty that NB couldn’t overcome. The Vikings ended up punting, although Drill, who was out at this point, is their regular punter. Their back up only booted the ball about 10 yards, but a favorable bounce got about another 13 yards out of it before the Vikes downed it at the 22 yard line.

With Drill out, the defense stepped up and forced Hermantown to punt from their own 24 yard line, and the Vikings got a very lucky break out of the punt attempt. The snap was a bit low to the Hawk punter, and he went to one knee to receive it at his own 12 yard line. The refs blew the whistle before he could get the punt off, as he was clearly down and in high school, you don’t need to be contacted to be down. 

With the massive Hermantown error, North Branch took over on the Hawks’ 12 yard line, and promptly scored, with Robillard finding a seam on the left side for a nine yard touchdown run. This time the two point conversion was good, with Robillard scoring, and the Vikes led 28-14 late in the third quarter.

Hermantown answered with a long drive of their own, and as the game got below eight minutes left, the Hawks scored on a short five yard rushing touchdown, cutting the lead to just seven for NB.

The Vikings offense then went to work again, with grinding out clock time being their primary objective. They didn’t score on the drive, but they went 13 plays and burned over seven minutes of clock, leaving the Hawks with 50 seconds left to try and march 80 yards for the score after a failed fourth down attempt by NB.

Hermantown did gain about 40 yards on their first three pass plays to get down to NB’s 40, but on their next play, the quarterback flared a pass out to his running back, who had a long way to try and get to the sidelines. He couldn’t beat the NB defenders there, and they tackled him in bounds for a four yard loss, and that took the clock from 32 seconds down to 15, and they had to spike the ball to stop the clock, costing them a down.

Facing third and 14 with no timeouts and no other option than to score a touchdown, Hermantown tried a trick play with a reverse pass, but NB was all over it, with the receiver triple covered and the ball nearly intercepted. On the fourth down play, the North Branch defense rushed just four, but got heavy pressure and Schott’s Hail Mary attempt only made it to about the 22 yard line, and it was harmlessly knocked down by the Vikings’ defenders.

With under one second left in the game, the Vikings just had to take a quick knee, and that set off the massive celebration for North Branch, as they secured their second straight trip to the state tournament with the 28-21 victory.

    

    

    

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