NRHEG Football Rides Winning Streak to First State Tournament

NRHEG won the Section 2AA football championship Friday night 46-6 over WEM, their sixth straight win since a loss to the Bucs. It's the first state tournament berth for New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva. NR/H won state titles in 1976 and 1978 and qualified for state in the 1980 and 1985.

First-year coach Marc Kruger said the Panthers are feeling very confident, "Coming in to the game, even though we lost 48-6 (in the regular season), we felt we were the team that was supposed to win, just the way that our season has gone." On Saturday's KRFO Coaches Show, Kruger added that NRHEG, "was clicking everywhere we needed to click and it's going to be hard to beat us."

Junior Blake Ihrke threw for six touchdowns. Junior Lonnie Wilson caught an 86-yard scoring strike, intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble. Senior Brady Agrimson and senior Jacob Schuller caught touchdown passes. Sophomore Kordell Schlaak took the ball to the house on a 47-yard run on the game's second play.

The NRHEG defense held WEM to just two first-half first downs and forced multiple turnovers.

The Panthers (9-2) face three-time defending state champ Caledonia (10-0) Friday, November 9 at Burnsville High School at 7 pm on Kat Kountry 105FM and the Kat Kountry 105 app. The Warriors have won 51 games in a row.