Stewartville football captures second consecutive Class 3A state title in dominating fashion

(Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with quotes and more info.)

MINNEAPOLIS — For the second consecutive season, the Stewartville High School football are the Class 3A state champions.

Behind a dominate offensive and defensive line, the No. 1 ranked and top-seeded Tigers controlled from the opening whistle, defending their state title with a 43-22 win over Dassel-Cokato on Saturday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium.

It’s Stewartville’s second state football title in eight trips.

The back-to-back state titles puts a bow on one of the more dominant two-year runs in recent memory. Stewartville has now won 28 consecutive games, outscoring its opponents by an average margin of 44.7-5.8. The Tigers seven shutouts this season are the third most all time in MSHSL history.

Stewartville is also the 14th program to capture back-to-back state football titles in the history of the MSHSL and the first since 2018 when Spring Grove and Owatonna went back-to-back.

Overall, the Tigers have won 38 of their past 39 games — the only loss coming in the Class 4A state quarterfinals to Hutchinson.

No. 38 was never truly in doubt.

The offensive line set the tone from the start, bulldozing the Dassel-Cokato defense on the Tigers’ 12-play, 59-yard opening drive that was capped by a Malik Abdi 3-yard rushing TD on the game’s opening drive. Of those 59-yards, 58 came on ground.

It was a sign of things to come.

On the following Stewartville drive, Dylan Scanlan would take it 58-yards untouched to the house. It was the first of two touchdowns for the senior running back, who would add a 20-yard TD in the second half as part of a game-high 140 yards rushing on 14 carries.

In all, the Stewartville offense finished with 244 yards on the ground, with Abdi adding 63 yards, a touchdown on 10 carries, and Parker Wangen adding 46 yards and two touchdowns. His 1-yard plunge on fourth-and-goal with 2 seconds left in the first half helped make it a 23-7 halftime lead.

Wangen would make it 29-7 early in the third quarter, hauling in a perfectly thrown pass between two defenders from quarterback Vincent Wellik for the 30-yard score. Wangen would score Stewartville’s final touchdown with a 6-yard run for an offense that finished with over 350 yards of total offense and 8 of 10 on third downs. The Minnesota State-Mankato commit also had an interception on the defensive side of the ball.

As good as the Stewartville offense was, one could make an argument the defense was just as good.

After Dassel-Cokato went 70-yards and scored on its opening drive, the Tigers had little trouble in shutting down Dassel-Cokato’s run-first, option attack. In fact, it appeared Stewartville had 13-14 players on the field with the way it rallied to the ball. That showed up in two key fourth down stops in D-C territory that tipped the game in Stewartville’s favor.

The Chargers had just 139 total yards midway through the fourth quarter before the Stewartville subs came in. This came on the heels of a D-C offense that ran for 335 yards in 63 attempts in its state semifinal victory.

Behind longtime coach coach Ryan Weinandt,

a Wabasha-Kellogg High School graduate

, the Chargers were in search of their second state title (2021).

BOX SCORE: Stewartville 43, Dassel-Cokato 22