Fink’s big day hoists Tigers by Greyhounds
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NEW ULM -- Isaac Fink caught two touchdown passes Saturday afternoon against New Ulm Cathedral in a Section 3A semifinal game at Johnson Field.
But Fink's biggest catch of the game came when he intercepted a Sam Knowles pass with 1:27 left in the game on the Tigers' 24-yard line to give Springfield a 29-22 upset win over the Greyhounds.
Fink caught scoring passes of 36 and 16 yards from Decker Scheffler. Scheffler also added touchdown runs of 1 and 5 yards.
For the game, Scheffler completed 15 passes for 160 yards and two touchdowns. Six of Scheffler's passes went to Fink, who had 85 yards in receiving and two scores.
Elliott Schoo scored on a 61-yard touchdown run, with Zach Helget and Knowles each scoring on 1-yard runs.
Schoo carried the ball 12 times for 94 yards, while Helget finished with 157 yards on 25 carries.
Springfield (6-4) now plays the 8-2 Murray County Central, who defeated MVL 45-20, at 2 p.m. Friday at Southwest State University.
"This was a game between two great football teams and it is too bad that one has to walk away in defeat," Tigers head coach Bob Fink said.
"You have to hand it to Springfield because they played with a lot of intensity," Cathedral coach Denny Lux said. "Defensively they were coming in hard. They had a good game plan defensively."
The Greyhounds, who defeated the Tigers 43-15 just 10 days ago, looked like they were going to repeat that when on their first place from scrimmage in the game, Ellott Schoo raced 61 yards untouched down the sideline for a 7-0 lead at the 8:33 mark.
"When you score like that on the first play of the game, your emotions are high," Lux said. "That can be a little detrimental at times because you can lose a little focus as far as hard as the rest of the game is going to be."
The Tigers answered that with a nine-play, 73-yard drive and took the lead on a Scheffler 8-yard run an a 2-point conversion pass from Scheffler to Dylan Batzlaff.
Cathedral regained the lead on a Knowles 1-yard run before the Tigers pieced together back-to-back scoring drives of 65 and 84 yards with a Scheffler run and a touchdown pass to Fink moving the Tigers into a 21-15 halftime lead.
Scheffler's 16-yard touchdown pass to Fink 40 seconds into the fourth quarter increased the Tigers' lead to 29-15.
It was also a third and fourth quarter where the Tigers' defense stymied Cathedral's running game.
"What we did defensively is we had one or two drop back and nine to 10 guys loaded up front," Bob Fink said. "If Cathedral was going to beat us, it was going to be by the pass and not the run."
Cathedral got to within 29-22 with just over four minutes left in the game on a Helget 1-yard run but got no closer.
"I have a lot of respect for our guys -- we gave ourselves a chance at the end but it did not work out," Lux said.