Waconia's stars run over the Stars

The Waconia Wildcats and the Holy Angels Stars looked like a good matchup on paper. Both teams had won five games and were in the mix for a high seed in the section playoffs. Games are not played on paper. It didn't take long to see these two teams were on entirely different levels. Waconia's 64-14 victory showed the Wildcats should be considered in the mix for a state tournament bid and maybe more.   One guy who is on a different level than any other player I have seen this season is Waconia running back [player_tooltip player_id='19002' first='Max' last='McEnelly']. I knew he was good, but seeing him in person – wow – good luck trying to tackle him. He only had 12 carries, but he picked up 230 yards and scored six touchdowns. It was like watching that youth football team with the one kid who developed physically before everyone else and was so much better than everyone else that it was almost funny to see the defense try to tackle him.   Things couldn't have started better for the Wildcats. A mishandled handoff by the Stars led to a Waconia fumble recovery by Brayden Kaczmarek. The turnover led to McEnelly's first touchdown – a 19 yard run in which he broke at least two tackles.   A balanced attack would be key during the Wildcats' second drive. Running back Alexander Riley – who is severely underrated playing alongside McEnelly – caught a pass for a first down and then showed his speed and shiftiness around the corner. Riley made another man miss during an inside run that picked up double-digit yards. That would set up McEnelly for a ten yard touchdown.   "He is a hard runner who could play DI football if he wanted to," McEnelly said of Riley. "He is a stud."   Riley didn't just make an impact on offense. He blocked a Holy Angels punt – setting up his offense in the red zone. One play later, Riley got great blocking on the edge and scored – basically untouched – from nineteen yards out.   After the Stars scored their only touchdown against the starters, Waconia's offense calmly went back to work. The running game continued to pick up yardage in big chunks. With Holy Angels' defense stacking ten guys within five yards of the line of scrimmage, the offensive line - Alex Mansager, Coleman Monskey, [player_tooltip player_id='313316' first='Brody' last='Leen'], Marshall Kilian, and Nicholas Johnson - continued to pound away. Once they got McEnelly going downhill, it was trouble for the Stars' defense. Lined up at quarterback, the multi-time state wrestling champion scored his third touchdown of the first half.   "Our offensive line dominates every play," McEnelly said. "It makes my job easy. When I get loose, I am pretty dangerous, but that offensive line is an experienced group. They come off the line and just kill people."   The Stars had no answer for the physicality of the Waconia team. I have seen bad teams get physically dominated before. Holy Angels are not a bad team. I have never seen one team dominate another good team physically, as the Wildcats did Wednesday night.   "Our mindset every game is to go in and dominate and stomp on people," McEnelly explained. "We are going to keep running the ball. We have the best two running backs in the state. We joke about (Riley) being the backup running back, but we would be the starter on any other team."   The game was over before halftime. McEnelly would score two more touchdowns in the first half to take a 44-7 lead into halftime.   It was more of the same for Waconia coming out of the locker room. On the first play of the second half, McEnelly ran around the left side for a 60 yard touchdown.   Riley – who might be the best back up running back in the state – would score two more times in the third quarter before the Stars got back into the end zone with most of the Wildcats' starters on the bench.   Defensively, Waconia was almost as dominant as the offense. They controlled the line of scrimmage. Like the offense, they were much more physical, and Holy Angels could not match the physical play.   "We game planned to stop the run, and we did that," McEnelly said. "We told our defensive backs they were going to take some shots, and we had to stop that. If we do that, we are going to win every single ball game."   With a running clock and most of the starters sitting out much of the fourth quarter, the 50 point victory could have been even worse.

The Waconia Wildcats and the Holy Angels Stars looked like a good matchup on paper. Both teams had won five games and were in the mix for a high seed in the section playoffs. Games are not played on paper. It didn't take long to see these two teams were on entirely different levels. Waconia's 64-14 victory showed the Wildcats should be considered in the mix for a state tournament bid and maybe more.