The West Central Area/Ashby football team has punched their ticket to US Bank Stadium with a 14-6 Class AA quarterfinal round victory over Moose Lake-Willow River in Brainerd on Thursday night. The Knights will play the winner of the Friday night game between Pipestone Area and Maple River on Friday, November 19 at 11:30am at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
The first quarter was scoreless on Thursday night, but Anthony Sykora’s 3-yard touchdown run in the second quarter put the Knights on top 6-0. That was all the scoring in the first half.
Evan Paulson connected with Cole Anderson on a 24-yard TD pass in the third quarter and after a successful two-point conversion WCA/Ashby led 14-0.
Moose Lake-Willow River struck for a fourth quarter touchdown on a 9 yard run by Logan Orvedahl. The two-point try failed and neither team scored again, making the final 14-6.
The Knights had 319 yards of total offense with 239 coming through the air and 80 on the ground. Paulson completed 11-of-16 passes for 239 yards and Sykora led the ground attack with 61 yards on 17 carries. Torin Olson had 3 receptions for 104 yards and Anderson caught 4 passes for 92 yards. The defense was led by Hunter Norby (6 tackles, 5 solo) and Sykora (5.5 tackles, 5 solo).
Moose Lake-Willow River finished with 214 total yards (50 passing, 164 rushing). Jackson Thompson had 83 rushing yards on 11 attempts and caught 3 passes for 35 yards. Adam Neumann was 5-for-10 passing for 50 yards.
“So proud of the Knights performance last night,” commented Head Coach Nate Wood. “We played with a ton of poise and belief in each other. Obviously MLWR had some eye-popping stats but we really felt that if we could keep it close in the first half we would have a good chance of winning.”
West Central Area/Ashby improved their season record to 10-1 with the win.