We are part of The Trust Project.
OSAKIS - The Osakis football team came into Friday’s homecoming game against the Parkers Prairie Panthers on the heels of a 51-8 loss to the Barnesville Trojans the week prior.
The Silverstreaks got back to playing their style of football in a 45-0 win over the Panthers (1-4, Class A).
“Anytime you come off a loss where you didn’t play well, you just want to get back on track,” Osakis head coach Bill Infanger said. “The focus this week was really getting back to who we are and what we do with being physical in our run game and hanging our hat on that. I think we did a nice job of that.”
Osakis wants to use the loss to Barnesville as motivation moving forward.
“We were all a little bit frustrated and maybe our pride was hurt a little bit,” Infanger said. “We kind of had to in our own head fight that battle and get back out there. We really had to hold ourselves accountable and hold ourselves to a high level of getting physical.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Osakis (4-1, Class AA) got the running game going on the first play of the game with junior wing back/linebacker Wyatt Sell breaking off a 50-yard that put Osakis at the Parkers Prairie 4-yard line. Hagedon then punched it in for a touchdown, his first of two on the night.
The Silverstreaks scored four more touchdowns after that and put up 28 points in the second quarter.
“When you play a team as strong as Osakis, you have to capitalize on the opportunities that are there for you,” Parkers Prairie head coach Mike Johnson said. “Coming out right away two plays in and seeing them scoring on us right away, and then responding with a nice long drive of our own, and falling short like that, you can't do that against good teams.”
Five of Osakis’ six touchdowns came on the ground. Those runs were set up by good field position created by the defense and special teams unit, as well as some big runs and chunk plays.
“We want to be the most physical team on the field,” Sell said. “I love physicality, it’s great.”
Sell had two of those big runs of 15-plus yards that put the Silverstreaks inside the Panthers 5-yard line.
Four different Silverstreaks scored a touchdown with Friday’s win. Hagedon had two, while junior fullback/linebacker Drew Imdieke, junior quarterback/cornerback Kyle Mages and junior running back/cornerback Gaven Cimbura had one as well.
“We have four different running threats on any given play with Tyson at halfback, Drew at fullback, Wyatt, who had a great game running the ball with some big plays on our counters and reverses, and we can run the ball with Kyle as well,” Infanger said. “We love to run the football inside and out. Sometimes it isn’t necessarily about a balance between passing and running, it’s about a balance between running the ball inside and outside. We were all over the field with the football but a lot of it was running.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In the kicking game, junior Duncan Tronicke made all six extra points, a 29-yard field goal in the third quarter and had a handful of touchbacks on kickoffs.
“It's been a long time since we've put four out the back of the end zone on kickoff, kick a field goal and been perfect on extra points in the same game,” Infanger said. “That’s a huge performance. When the other team more often than not has to start their drive at their own 20 yard line, that makes it way easier on our defense. That's a really big factor in a football game that sometimes gets overlooked when your kickers are doing that for you.”
The 45 points is the most a team scored on Parkers Prairie since Upsala-Swanville scored 50 on Parkers Prairie on Nov. 11, 2020.
Parkers Prairie came into Friday’s contest having allowed 14 points or less in three out of its four games.
“Our defense has been great this entire year,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to help them out on the offensive side of the ball and put some points on the board. And special teams have to do a better job of setting us up with some good field position. Those guys played with their backs against the end zone a lot.”
Parkers Prairie had some offensive momentum going early as it drove down to the Osakis 12-yard line with the chance to score.
Junior guard/linebacker Tyler Baumgartner and the Osakis defensive front stopped that momentum with a fourth down sack for a turnover on downs.
“We’ve just got to execute better. Otherwise, we’ll keep doing the same stuff,” Johnson said. “I’m confident in them. They’re learning. The guys battled to the end and they never gave up. And that says a lot about who they are. Hopefully, that's something that we can build on as we finish out the year here.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Osakis forced two interceptions in the game, with Hagedon and Mages each collecting one.
“We love creating turnovers, creating turnovers is fun,” Sell said.
Parkers Prairie has scored more than 10 points in just one game this season (a 36-14 win at Roseau) and has been shut out in back-to-back games.
“We got three regular-season games left and it’s all going to be about execution,” Johnson said. “It's about executing, finishing our drives, playing strong defense and seeing where the chips fall. Our goal throughout the whole season was to be playing our best football at the end of the season.”
Johnson said the message to the team with three games remaining in the regular season is to stay the course.
“We’ve played some tough teams this year and that's kind of something that we've been preaching all year long,” he said. “I say stay the course, keep learning, keep getting better, keep staying positive, and keep climbing the ladder to get better each and every day. And they've done a heck of a job doing that. I'm proud of their resilience and how they battled back from things they’ve faced earlier this year.”
Parkers Prairie is back at home to face Underwood (0-5, 0-2 Section 6A) at 7 p.m. on Oct. 7.
Underwood beat Parkers Prairie in the 2021 season, 14-8.
Osakis hits the road to face Perham (3-2, Class AAA) at 7 p.m. on Oct. 7.
“I think we just got to stick with who we are and what we do,” Infanger said. “I think last week we kind of got away from that a little bit. We just need to be us and do the things that we do well and stick with it and not abandon it.”
Perham handed Osakis its lone regular season loss in 2021, by a score of 29-28.
Parkers Prairie - 0 0 0 0 - 0
Osakis - 7 28 3 7 - 45
SCORING
1ST -
Tyson Hagedon 4-yard run, 11:39, Duncan Tronicke PAT, (Osakis 7-0)
2ND -
Kyle Mages 17-yard pass to Ben Berger, 11:44, Duncan Tronicke PAT, (Osakis 14-0)
Drew Imdieke 1-yard run, 8:23, Duncan Tronicke PAT, (21-0 Osakis)
Tyson Hagedon 1-yard run, 5:16, Duncan Tronicke PAT, (28-0 Osakis)
Kyle Mages 1-yard run, 0:33, Duncan Tronicke PAT, (35-0 Osakis)
3RD -
Duncan Tronicke 29-yard field goal, 8:20 (38-0 Osakis)
4TH -
Gaven Cimbura 11-yard run, Tronicke PAT 9:42, (45-0 Osakis)
