Friday night was a tremendous homecoming environment for the Hermantown football team and the community -- from the pregame tailgate, to the huge crowd, to the high-energy Hawks student section and to the weather.
"What a great night for high school football. It was extremely energizing for our team," legendary Hermantown head coach Mike Zagelemeyer said of his team's impressive 42-12 victory over Rock Ridge at Corey Veech Field at Centricity Stadium.
The only thing that could have ruined it for the home team would have been a Northeast Red loss.
"Our team was pretty locked in to prevent that from happening," Zagelmeyer said of a possible Hawks' loss.
Hermantown improved to 3-1 in the conference and one half game behind leader North Branch (3-0). Duluth Denfeld (2-1) is also in the mix for a league championship. All three teams are 4-1 overall, with the Vikings already owning home victories over the Hawks (48-44) and Hunters (47-12).
North Branch visits Grand Rapids (3-2, 2-2) Friday night.
"We came ready to play and I thought we matched Rock Ridge's physicalness and then some," said Zagelemeyer.
Hermantown put the pressure on the Wolverines almost immediately defensively, Zagelmeyer said.
"Our pass defense was on point (4 interceptions total) and partly due to the injury to their quarterback, but I also thought we broke on balls in the air pretty well," said Zagelemeyer. "Landon Burg had an unbelievable night with three interceptions, which is a season total for most defensive backs. He had a tremendous break on the ball that he intercepted in the 1st quarter, which was absolutely a momentum-breaking play for Rock Ridge. Overall, I really like the way he has been playing defensively from a tough play down at North Branch. You love to see a player respond in a positive manner to some adversity, which he experienced probably for the first time in his football career down at North Branch.
"Grant Johnson is another player who is really starting to contribute a ton defensively for us at linebacker. We graduated some excellent backers last year and we didn't really know if we would be able to have the same production out of that position this year. But Jimmy Bartsch, Grant Johnson and Kale Smith have been doing a nice job making plays for us defensively."
Zagelmeyer said he really liked the way his team ran the ball.
"Anytime you run for over 300 yards on the ground you have a great chance to come out on top," he said. "Martin Sleen really had a breakout type of game. He keeps getting better and better as the season progresses and I believe he showed on Friday just how explosive of a player he could be for us moving forward. He is starting to see when to be patient, when to make a cut off of his block, when to lower his shoulder to get what he can, and when to put the hammer down and show off his speed. He is a fun player to watch and is becoming more and more coachable."
Hemantown will host Duluth East (2-3, 0-3 conference) Friday at 7 p.m.
"Duluth East which should be another challenge for us," said Zagelmeyer. "All the old scout cards we had on them are in the garbage as they have a new coaching staff that is implementing their new offense. There will have to be lots of preparation this week from our coaching staff in stressing having our players stay disciplined to their own defensive assignments.
"The veer is a tough offense to stop if players start trying to do too much and lose track of their own individual assignments. Again, it's a season within the season this week and all eyes are on East."