Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Springfield’s Sam Pidde returns a punt during a Section 3A semifinals football game with Martin County West on Saturday at Riverside Park in Springfield.

SPRINGFIELD — Despite being held out of the end zone in the second half, the second-seeded Springfield Tigers got a commanding effort out of their defense to ensure the win as the Tigers topped third-seeded Martin County West 21-7 in a Section 3A semifinals football game Saturday afternoon.

The win moves the Tigers on to the Section 3A championship game with top-seeded Tracy-Milroy-Balaton at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Southwest Minnesota State University. TMB held off fourth-seeded Murray County Central 14-6 on Saturday to advance to Friday’s title game.

“Very proud of our kids, the way they battled,” Tigers head coach Adam Meyer said. “From the very first snap, played hard, played disciplined. Defensively, got after the football and kind of took away their running game early and that kind of made life easy on offense once we got a couple scores up. We could really slow the game down and keep the ball on the ground and kind of take that clock away.”

While the Tigers fumbled the ball away on their second play of the game, the defense responded and forced MCW to turn the ball over on downs at the Springfield 30-yard line after seven plays. Ashtin Johnson then helped lead the Tigers down the field with a 58-yard run, setting the Tigers up at the Mavericks’ 2. Two plays later, Johnson found the end zone on a 1-yard run to give the Tigers their first touchdown of the day with 5:25 left in the first quarter.

After forcing the Mavericks to punt on their next drive, the Tigers again looked to be in trouble after fumbling on a run to the outside. But the fumble was scooped up by Springfield’s MaCoy Krick, who took it 64 yards into the end zone for a two-score lead with 2:36 still to play in the first quarter.

The Tigers got their final score of the game with 1:08 left in the first half after quarterback Jakob Nachreiner found a leaping Brayden Sturm in the right corner of the end zone for a 4-yard touchdown and a 21-0 halftime advantage.

MCW was held scoreless its next three drives before capitalizing on an intercepted pass by Rylan Cutler in its own end zone and finishing the next drive on a short TD keeper by quarterback Zach Anderson with 7:06 left to play.

Without feeling too much pressure, the Tigers’ defense made more big plays later on after Sam Rummel sacked Anderson on what would be MCW’s final drive of the game. That sack was followed by an intentional grounding and a game-sealing interception by Sturm on a deep throw into triple coverage.

“Just seeing the way our defense was playing, even just the way we ran the ball in the first half, we felt really comfortable keeping the ball on the ground and being conservative,” Meyer said. “If we put our defense in a situation where [MCW] had to drive a long distance, we felt good about making them try to pile plays up. Extremely proud of the way our defense played.”

Nachreiner did throw two interceptions on the day, but he also didn’t take any unnecessary risks and finished with 93 yards through the air.

“I was happy with the way he took care of the ball for the most part,” Meyer said of Nachreiner. “When we took our shots, we took our shots and he knew if he was going to miss, it was going to be deep and outside, and we just wanted the football in our hands. He did a great job managing the game. Throughout the season, we mixed run and pass a lot, and today was a lot of run game and he handled that extremely well.”

Johnson rushed for 148 yards to lead the Tigers on the ground.

Ashton Toll led the Tigers on defense with 15 tackles, while Gage Weber added a sack. In addition to Sturm’s late interception, Krick and Sam Pidde also each had an interception.

Joseph Forsberg led the Mavericks, who finished the year with a 7-3 record, with 19 carries for 76 yards. Max Olson led the MCW defense with 12 tackles, while Wyatt Williamson added an interception.

The Tigers are now just a win away from returning to state for the third time in five seasons.

TMB defeated Springfield 34-6 on Sept. 23 in Tracy, but with a state tournament appearance on the line this time, Meyer and his players are looking forward to the challenge.

“We know their going to be a physical football team, they’re well-coached,” Meyer said of TMB. “It’s very similar in a lot of ways to what we saw today with the power-run game — got to stop that first and make sure we’re taking that away before they can throw the ball up in the air a little bit.

“We played them earlier in the year, and, no, we didn’t play our best game, but some of that was the way they played as well. We know it’s going to be a big opportunity and we know it’s going to be a big challenge, but the way our kids are playing and their mindset right now, I think we’re looking forward to that.”