“Our offensive line played real well setting up a strong running game and also providing good pass protection allowing us to pick up yards through the air to keep the defense off balance,” assessed Pelican Rapids Head Coach David Haugen.  “Helping us keep the defense off balance was the ability to run between the tackles and also get outside.  Johnny Ziebell showed great power and balance picking up many yards after contact and Jayden Rutherford and McHale Korf both average over 10 yards per carry.  I was also pleased with the defensive effort as we had good team pursuit and held the cougars to several short gains on the night.  We need to improve on some of our pursuit angles but our effort is definitely something that we can build on.”

The Vikings scored with 8:22 left in the first quarter on a 3-yard run by Johnny Ziebell, taking a 6-0 lead.  Ada-Borup pulled even when Aiden Marcussen hit Weston Winfrey with a 15-yard touchdown pass at 5:59.  With 1:32 remaining in the first quarter Ziebell found the end zone from one yard out and then scored the two-point conversion to give the Vikings a 14-6 lead.

An 18 yard TD run by Jayden Rutherford at 8:08 of the second quarter increased the lead to 20-6 and with 2:50 remaining in the half McHale Korf scored on a 2-yard run and booted the extra point kick through the uprights to lift the halftime score to 27-6, Vikings.

Marcussen hooked up on a 76-yard TD pass to Beau Fetting 1:01 into the second half, cutting the Vikings lead to 27-12, however, the Vikings got the lead up to 34-12 on a 6-yard run to the end zone by Korf and a PAT kick by Enrique Rodriguez-Lopez with 7:21 left in the third.  Ziebell’s third TD of the night, on a 3-yard run pushed the score to 40-12 with 4:13 on the clock in the third quarter, and a 30 yard Korf touchdown run, followed by another PAT kick by Rodriguez-Lopez upped the score to 47-12 with 1:33 remaining in the period.

Each team scored a fourth quarter TD with Peyton Blakeway running the ball in from 4 yards out to give the home team a 53-12 lead.  Wyatt Larson then hit Dustin Olson with a 6-yard scoring toss for the Cougars as time expired.  Isaak Nelson scored on a two-point conversion run and the final score was 53-20.

Pelican Rapids ran for 314 yards and picked up 28 first downs, 22 of them coming on the ground.  Korf completed 9-of-10 passes for 147 yards and led the Vikings with 120 rushing yards on 12 carries.  Ziebell ran for 82 yards on 14 rushing attempts.  Rutherford was the leading receiver with 89 yards on 3 receptions.

For Ada-Borup, Fetting caught four passes for 97 yards and had a team high 31 rushing yards on 12 attempts.  Marcussen was 7-of-15 throwing the football for 160 yards.

The Vikings will play at New York Mills on Wednesday at 7:00pm.