Hawks Off to State

Kerry Rodd – NSO

The Hermantown Hawks are going back to the state football tournament for the 6th time in school history and for the first time since 2003 as the Hawks beat the Princeton Tigers in the section 7AAAA title game by a score of 41-14 at Public School Stadium.

Every team has a Go To Guy! You know? That player that always seems to hit the big shot, make the big play, or just seems to be in the right place at the right time. On Friday night the Hermantown Hawks let their Go To Running Back, Thomas Madison, lead the charge in a 41-14 rout of the Princeton Tigers in the Class AAAA Section 7 Championship football game at Public Schools Stadium in Duluth.

In the end Madison ran for 253 yards and a pair of scores and the Hawks proved to have too much depth in pounding out the win that included a 27-7 halftime lead.

The Hawks scored the first quarter’s only touchdown on an inside counter play when Madison handed the ball off to Peter Grytdahl who raced in from 17 yards giving the Hawks a 7-0 lead after the Cody McShane kick.

Madison led off the second half on a nifty 44-yard touchdown scamper making it 14-0 after the McShane boot for an extra point. The Tigers looked like they had a little life on the next drive when Tyler McAlpine bulled in for a touchdown from the three-yard line and Diego Nevares added the extra point kick cutting the lead to 14-7.

However the Hawks added two more touchdowns before the half ended when Madison broke free on a 71-yard touchdown romp and on the following possession it was Madison taking a hand off, in what looked like a sweep play, and instead popped up and threw a strike to Grytdahl who galloped in for a 27-yard touchdown catch and run making the score 27-7 at halftime.

The Tigers struck first in the second half when Drew Walquist nabbed a McAlpine pass from eight yards out cutting the lead to 27-14, but again the Hawks responded with two fourth quarter touchdowns of their own. The first score was a James Lindberg 34-yard touchdown scamper and the second was an impressive 39-yard run by Matt Valure making the final 41-14.

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