My Top Performances of 2019 – Prep Bowl addition
Looking back on the 2019 high school football season, I saw a bit of everything. I saw games that literally came down to the last snap of the game and games that were basically over before halftime. I saw undefeated…
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Continue ReadingLooking back on the 2019 high school football season, I saw a bit of everything. I saw games that literally came down to the last snap of the game and games that were basically over before halftime. I saw undefeated teams and a team that had not won in more than two years. I saw some great games, and I saw some great performances – so many in fact that my original story got too long. So, here is a list of my favorite individual performances I was lucky enough to see this season – Prep Bowl edition.
Mattias Algarin, Pierz vs. Dassel-Cokato
Algarin did a bit of everything. He rushed for 165 yards – with a 7.5 average – added 44 yards receiving and 44 yards on kick returns. The senior also tallied five tackles and deflected a pass. That is not the reason he made my list. The reason he made this list was that with his team down five points late in the fourth quarter – Algarin took over the game. The senior gave the drive a jump start by catching a 22-yard pass down the sidelines. On the next play, he picked up eighteen yards on the ground. Faced with a fourth and one, the Pioneers looked to Algarin again, and he picked up the first down. Inside of a minute to play, the Nebraska commit caught another twenty-two-yard pass to set up the touchdown he scored two plays later.
Jalen Suggs, SMB vs. Rocori
Suggs is one of the best football players that I have seen since I have been covering high school football. He is the only guy on this list who lost the game. It was an epic game with an epic finish, and Suggs was one of the reasons. The reason he is on this list goes beyond the stats, but here they are. Suggs threw for 157 yards while completing over 70 percent of his passes. He was largely bottled up on the ground – more on that in a minute – but he did score a touchdown. On defense, he was credited with four tackles. The main reason he is on the list is his toughness. One of the reasons his rushing yards were down is he was an obvious injury he suffered late in the first half. Despite that, he rarely came out of the game and toughed it out – nearly winning the game for his team when he just missed deflecting the winning two-point conversion throw.
Christian Vasser and the Wayzata offensive line vs. Champlin Park
I am an old offensive lineman, and I will admit, Vasser was outstanding in the 6A championship game. There is no doubting that. There is also no doubt that if you put him behind an average offensive line, he still would put up numbers. No running back is an island, however, and Vasser got a lot of help from a dominating performance from his offensive line. The Trojans ran 57 offensive plays – 53 of the plays were runs. The offense scored touchdowns on five of their nine drives. One of those drives that didn’t score was a one-play drive at the end of the first half, and another was a six-play drive that ran out the fourth quarter game clock. Vasser was not stopped for a loss once in the entire game and was stopped for no-gain only three times. It was an old lineman’s dream game.