Fast Pace Leads Tea Area to State Title over Canton

Jake Evans

November 21, 2020 @ 01:10 PM

The Tea Area Titans and the Canton C-Hawks met up in the Dakota Dome for the 11A State Championship. The two teams met up early in Week One of the season. It was a tight battle between the two with the Titans emerging with 27-21 victory over the C-Hawks. I saw this game as a defensive battle again, as Canton’s defense had played phenomenal in the previous playoff games, if they could contain the explosive Tea offense, the game would stay close. Tea took advantage of an early turnover to get their first score, after that the speed of the Titan offense just took over the game. The C-Hawks scored twice in the second half, but it was too late for a comeback. Here’s your scoring recap here: 1st Quarter: Tea- Austin Lake 11 yard pass to Connor Mulder, PAT Good, 7-0 Tea. Tea- 90 yard rush, PAT Good, 14-0 Tea. Tea- Austin Lake 30 yard rush, PAT Good, 21-0 Tea. 2nd Quarter: Tea- Austin Lake 14 yard pass to Cael Lundin, PAT Good, 28-0 Tea. 3rd Quarter: Tea- Austin Lake 63 yard rush, PAT Good, 35-0 Canton- Seth Peterson 1 yard rush, 2-point Good, 35-8 Tea. 4th Quarter: Canton- Seth Peterson 8 yard pass to Payton Eben, 2-point Good, 35-16 Tea. Players Highlighted from Tea Area: FB/DB- Garrett Kolbeck Garrett Kolbeck 5'11" | 175 lbs | ATH Tea Area | 2021 State played well in pass coverage in this game, made some tackles out on the perimeter as well. Offensively was a great lead blocker, but could also pick up yardage himself, has speed and power. QB/DB- Austin Lake showed to be a good dual threat QB in the game, threw some nice passes to his receivers, made good decisions on to run or pass, and busted off some big gains in the option offense with his speed, but was also not afraid of contact. RB/DB- Kaden Johnson Kaden Johnson 5'10" | 170 lbs | RB Tea Area | 2021 State had a lot of big gains in the run game as well with his speed, very hard to catch up to. The defense focused on him a little more so he opened up chances for his teammates to make plays. Players Highlighted from Canton: QB/DB- Seth Peterson did a good job offensively getting yards running or throwing, carries out fakes well and throws a pretty good ball. RB/DB- Zander Elling flew around the field defensively and made a ton of tackles, he tracked the ball well and wrapped up. OL/LB- Zach Richardson slowed down the run game up the middle, he filled gaps quickly and made many tackles for little to no gains.