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MARSHALL — The Springfield Tigers’ three-year reign as the Section 3A football champions came to an end on Friday in the section final at Mattke Field. A stretch of 22 unanswered points for the Murray County Central Rebels turned the tide as they downed Springfield 31-20.

“It’s tough to reflect right now, but I’m very grateful for the coaches that we have and the players that we’ve had come through here,” Springfield head coach Adam Meyer said. “We’ve had some really great leaders. We had a great group of seniors this year, we’re going to have a great group of seniors a year from now, and those are the guys that make this all happen, and I’m very fortunate to be a part of it… Proud of the way our kids battled all season. It was still a very successful season, just maybe ended a bit sooner than we wanted it to.”

The win gave the Rebels a taste of revenge after falling to Springfield in last year’s section championship and in Week 2 of this season. Since that Week 2 loss, the Rebels have now won eight straight games, culminating with their Friday victory over the three-time reigning state runners-up.

Photo by Jake McNeill Springfield’s Paytin Johnson (1) runs the ball during the Section 3A finals game with Murray County Central on Friday afternoon at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.

Midway through the second quarter, Jordan Sturges deflected a third-down pass attempt from the Tigers to get the ball back in MCC’s hands in a tie game. Carson Lewis broke off a 46-yard run to the Springfield 22-yard line on the first play of the drive.

Jordan Sturges and Lewis each worked for 6-yard gains on the ground to get MCC to the 11, and a pair of carries from Lewis set up fourth-and-2 from the 3-yard line. The Rebels called a timeout to talk things over, and Springfield followed with a timeout of their own before the snap.

After the prolonged break, the Rebels again ran their signature sneak, with Teague Meyer crossing the plane for a go-ahead touchdown with three-and-a-half minutes to play in the first half. The Rebels led for the remainder of the game.

Lewis finished as the Rebels’ rushing leader on the day with 33 carries for 190 yards while Meyer added another 19 carries for 73. As a team, MCC finished with 59 carries for 280 yards on the ground compared to 17 for 75 from Springfield. The Rebels also converted each of their five fourth-down conversion attempts.

“The hard part about defending options is, even if you know what’s coming, you still have to be so disciplined and gap-sound,” coach Meyer said. “Our coaches and players did a great job. We threw a lot of different looks at those guys. They’re so good up front, a lot of these guys are two-, three-, four-year players. Their quarterback’s even been at this for a while. They have a great running game, we just were throwing a lot of stuff at them and they had answers.”

Trailing by 8 points with three-and-a-half minutes to play, Springfield stopped the Rebels with the help of a holding call and forced an MCC punt to get the ball back. The Tigers needed to drive nearly the length of the field to tie the game, but Adam Iverson and Noah Mathiowetz came up with a third-down stop and Sturges deflected a pass on fourth-and-6 to give the Rebels the ball with two minutes left.

While the Rebels weren’t able to advance the ball significantly, their starting field position in the red zone and Springfield’s lack of timeouts were enough for them to ice the game.

Aubin Licht stepped up to attempt a kick from the 12 yard line and it went between the uprights, but was nullified due to an encroachment penalty against the Tigers. He lined up to try for 3 points again, this time from the 7-yard line, and was once again money, drilling the field goal to give MCC an 11-point lead with 30 seconds to play.

Springfield was only able to get off one play after the ensuing kickoff before time expired, and the Rebels stormed the field to celebrate the win.

Trailing by 8 points, MCC started to turn the tide early in the second quarter. Lewis kickstarted MCC’s first drive of the frame with an 11-yard run on first down and a Meyer 5-yard gain brought the ball past midfield.

Another pair of carries for 22 yards from Lewis advanced the Rebels to the 22, and Meyer made a rare drop back before tucking the ball and running for 4 yards into the red zone. Lewis took care of business from there, running the ball 19 yards over the next two plays for the touchdown.

Still trailing by a pair of points, the Rebels opted to attempt the 2-point conversion. Meyer took the snap and rolled out to his right before throwing on the run for his first pass attempt of the game. Gabe Tentinger jumped up to make the grab and held on through the contact to tie up the game at 14 points apiece with eight minutes remaining in the half.

Isaac Fredin caught a 5-yard pass on fourth down to keep the chains moving on Springfield’s second possession of the game. A defensive holding call against the Rebels and a 17-yard completion to Lendt moved the Tigers into the red zone, and a pair of carries for a total of 15 yards from Paytin Johnson moved Springfield to first-and-goal from the 2.

Luke Iverson and Lucas Kuball came up with a tackle for loss and the Rebel line stuffed the Tigers on second down to set up third-and-goal from the 2, but Parker Kuehn sprinted out to his right on third down and crossed the plane to set up the go-ahead touchdown.

Kuehn finished the day passing for 148 yards and rushing for another 29. Fredin logged a game-high eight catches for 44 yards, while Lendt finished with a team-leading 85 yards on five catches.

“Parker’s been great all year for us. We put him in a system that he’s going through multiple reads every snap, and he’s done a great job of distributing the football all season for us,” coach Meyer said. “Story of the game was the momentum was so up and down, and we’d make some really great plays followed by some plays we wish we had back. At this point in the season, you need to stack good plays back to back more often than we did, but that’s credit to that team. But yeah, Parker was awesome all season, nothing today surprised me from him.”

MCC received the second-half kickoff and refused to let the Springfield defense get off the field. The Rebels converted three fourth-and-inches attempts on the drive, with the last of the three being a four-yard carry from Lewis as he coasted untouched into the end zone for a 28-14 Rebel lead. MCC burned over 10 minutes of clock on the first drive of the half as they increased their lead to 14 points

Kuehn gave the Tigers a spark on the ensuing possession, breaking off a 20-yard run to get the Springfield offense to midfield and converting a third-and-3 with an outside run to the MCC 40.

Kuehn attempted to throw a deep ball into the end zone, but double coverage from Meyer and Sturges forced the ball to fall incomplete. Still, Lendt grabbed an 11-yard reception to move the chains and Fredin caught a tip drill over the middle for a 9-yard gain.

Fredin again caught the ball on the next play to set up a first-and-goal, and Kadyn Anderson caught a 6-yard pass near the goalline before a strong tackle from Sturges left him just shy of the touchdown. A false start backed the Tigers up, but Springfield flooded the right side of the field on second down. Kuehn found Lendt as the lone wideout on the left side in the middle of the end zone for a touchdown, making it a one-score game. Still, Luke Iverson blocked the point after to keep MCC’s lead at eight points with 10 minutes remaining.

MCC forced a three-and-out on Springfield’s first possession of the game and capitalized once they took over at the 45. Sturges and Lewis started the drive with a pair of runs to get the ball to the 31, and Sturges broke off a 14-yard chunk to bring the ball into the red zone.

After another pair of Lewis carries set the Rebels up with a third-and-2 from the 4-yard line, Meyer punched in the game’s first touchdown for a 6-0 lead after the missed point after attempt.

After a bad pitch resulted in an 11-yard loss on third down for the Rebels, Lendt returned the MCC punt from the Springfield 30 to the MCC 40. Ferdin kept the momentum rolling with an 11-yard reception to get into the red zone, and Johnson took a pair of carries for 19 yards into the end zone to give Springfield a 14-6 lead on the first play of the second quarter.

Springfield muffed the kick after MCC’s go-ahead touchdown in the second quarter, setting the Rebels up at the 38-yard line, but Aidan Moriarty stripped the Rebels on the ensuing carry and Colten Sell recovered to get the ball right back.

Moriarty led the Springfield defense with 14 tackles while Adiel Trevino added another 12.

The Tigers faced a third-and-22 after a holding call and the Rebels jumping all over a screen pass, but Lendt made a sideline grab to flip the field from the Springfield 22 to the MCC 41 with two-and-a-half minutes remaining in the half. Still, a stuff and an incompletion set up a third-and-9, and Kuball intercepted a tipped ball thrown into double coverage to allow MCC to head into the half with a 21-14 lead.

Springfield finishes its season at 9-1 and graduates a group of seniors that includes Johnson, Fredin, Anderson, Trevino, Dane Fast, Grady Korkemeier and Carter Zamaniego.

“They’ve had a great four-year run. If you think about it, they’ve played in four section titles, three state championship games, I don’t know if we lost a game at home in their four-year tenure,” coach Meyer said of his seniors. “Just great kids that are going to go off and do awesome things beyond high school football. I hope they’ve laid a great foundation for those that follow, and that’s really when you can tell you know what these guys meant to a program.”

MCC now awaits seeding for the Class A state tournament. Teams are seeded 1 through 4 in each of the North and South divisions of the tournament, with the bracket being announced on Saturday.

The Class A quarterfinals will be held on Friday, with the South quarterfinals slated for 5:30 p.m. at Jordan High School and 7 p.m. at Rochester High School.