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Knights Advance to State Semi’s with Quarterfinal Win Over Moose Lake-Willow River

By Craig Olson, 11/12/21, 1:00PM CST

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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.