VERMILLION, S.D. (KELO) — Lincoln was one of four teams seeking an undefeated season in last weekend’s state football championships.
Lincoln entered Saturday one win away from a perfect 12-0 record… standing in the their way was the O’Gorman Knights. The Pats found themselves up just 14 at halftime, but a stellar second half would lift them to their first state title since 2014.
“We’ve fallen short in the semifinals the last three years. We’ve been working our butt off the last three summers in the morning, 6am or earlier to get our work in, I’m just so happy for the guys,” Lincoln senior quarterback Tate Schafer said.
“It’s amazing what you can do when nobody cares who gets the credit. Sometimes it’s Jack other times, it’s Tate sometimes it’s Dreavin sometimes it’s Isaac. Tonight, our defense basically did it for us, and nobody cares. They want to win and they want to win together,” Lincoln head coach Jared Fredenburg said.
The Patriots made it their mission to get through the 11AAA class unscathed and they did just that, with Saturday’s 31-7 win.
“We talked about that, at the beginning of the year too, I mean, we have to play with the target on the back, we’re going to get, everybody’s best shot no matter who we’re playing. We played really with that pressure we talked about that all summer too. And, and it was something that we didn’t really back away from and we kind of embraced,” coach Fredenburg said.
The win put a bow on Lincoln’s undefeated season, adding another trophy to their collection.
“It’s all worth it when you get text messages and calls from those kids that you coached two years ago, three years or four years ago, and they’re wishing you good luck. And it’s for those guys that helped build this thing a long time ago and we had some really good players come through and we finally did it,” Fredenburg said.
Saturday’s championship win is the fourth in Lincoln football history and their third since the creation of 11AAA in 2013.
