Quote Me, Howie: Mike Zagelmeyer
"We have our biggest test to date on Friday night as we travel to North Branch (1-1, 1-0 Northeast Red) to face the two-time defending section champs and the team that has ended our season the last two years. There shouldn't be a lot of motivation needed to perform well." -- Mike Zagelmeyer
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Legendary Hermantown football coach Mike Zagelmeyer on his team's convincing 35-6 Northeast Red high school victory over Cloquet on Friday night at Corey Veech Field at Centricity Stadium, to improve to 2-0 and 1-0 in the conference and set up a The Game of Week 3 major league test Friday at North Branch: "I thought our defense was tremendous. We held Cloquet to negative yardage until late in the 4th quarter. I thought we played physical. We flew to the ball and gang-tackled – all the cliches you could use for a good defensive game are in play after that game. We pressured their quarterback when they wanted to pass and we did what needed to be done to have success versus the run game of the wing T. Our guys are pretty familiar with that offense since we have run it for well over 40 years at Hermantown. Overall, it was probably one of the better defensive performances I can remember us playing.
Offensively, it was nice to see us get our run game going and it wasn't just one guy – it was spread out. I thought Aidan Adamski ran tough as the fullback, and Martin Sleen and Corbin Peterson were a nice change of pace with their speed at halfback.
We did enough in the passing game to keep Cloquet off balance and not just focused on what we were doing on the ground. We believe some sort of balance is imperative for success with our offense, and we achieved that on Friday night. It is nice being 2-0, and it sure beats 0-2. But we continue to stress it is a season, within a season, within a season every week.
We have our biggest test to date on Friday night as we travel to North Branch (1-1, 1-0 Northeast Red) to face the two-time defending section champs and the team that has ended our season the last two years. There shouldn't be a lot of motivation needed to perform well. The key to the game will be stopping their offense. It is a hard offense for our scout team to replicate in practice to get a good look at it, even though they do what they do extremely well. They don't do a lot offensively, but when run well, the Power T offense can be difficult to stop. And they keep getting better at it each year. We will need to be extremely physical. It will be a huge test for us and we are excited for the challenge."
Northeast Red Standings
Team (overall) – Conference
Hermantown (2-0) – 1-0
Duluth Denfeld (2-0) – 1-0
North Branch (1-1) – 1-0
Duluth East (2-0) – 0-0
Cloquet (0-2) – 0-1
Grand Rapids (1-1) – 0-1
Rock Ridge (1-1) – 0-1
Week 3 Games
Thursday
Pine City at Denfeld, 6 p.m.
Friday
Hermantown at North Branch, 7 p.m.
Duluth East at Cloquet, 7 p.m.
Grand Rapids at Rock Ridge, 7 p.m.
VIKINGS NOTEBOOK
Vikings at Giants Week 1 Game Preview
EAGAN, Minn. — Kickoff Weekend is approaching fast.
By the time the Minnesota Vikings visit the New York Giants to tee up their 2024 NFL regular seasons, two games will already be decided.
The Vikings are opening the 64th season in franchise history, and the Giants are reaching triple digits while wearing "Century Red" commemorative uniforms in honor of the franchise's 100th season. Read more.
MINNESOTA MILE
Former college standouts finish first at 2024 Minnesota Mile
Collegiate runners ruled the day at the 18th annual Minnesota Mile, which reached its registration capacity of 600 and saw the event’s most participation since 2019.
Finn Youberg, a 21-year-old from Gulf Breeze, Fla. who ran the past three seasons for the University of Minnesota Duluth cross country team, won his first-ever Minnesota Mile men’s title with a time of 4:38.
Hayden O’Connor and Michael Torchia were within 10 seconds of Youberg, finishing in second and thirdplace, respectively.
Brooke Jaworski, meanwhile, ran away from the women’s field and broke the tape in 5:11 to earn her first-ever Minnesota Mile victory. The 23-year-old from Wausau, Wis. just finished an impressive Division I career, earning three All-American honors at the University of Texas before competing one season as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.
2022 champion Hanna Torvi was this year’s runner-up, finishing 29 seconds behind Jaworski in 5:40.
There were 526 total finishers (227 men, 299 women) in this year’s Minnesota Mile, marking the most participation in the event since 2019. – Press release
