COTTONWOOD — Ryan Meagher scored five first-half touchdowns on Friday night to lead the top-ranked Minneota football team to a lopsided 76-7 road victory over the Lakeview Lakers. The result extends the Vikings’ win streak to 26 games, dating back to October 2022, and gave Minneota its highest regular-season point total since an 84-7 win over Lakeview in 2017.

Minneota head coach Chad Johnston said his group made a conscious decision before the game that they would play their starters for the first half and a drive or two of the second half before pulling them for the reserves. 

“We just felt like we owed it to our starters to play them a few more minutes,” Johnston said. “Definitely were some things that we wanted to work on today, things that we wanted to get against opponents, get on tape. So I felt our running game was very, very effective and we went out and tried to work on some things with the passing game.”

It didn’t take Minneota long to set the tone for the night. Joey Lacek was the deep man to receive the opening kickoff. After making the catch, he zipped down the left sideline to take the ball to the house for a 7-0 Vikings lead. 

After the Vikings’ defense forced a Lakeview 3-and-out, Minneota once again marched down the field and capped off its first offensive possession with a Ryan Meagher touchdown to double its lead.

Meagher finished the game with 182 rushing yards on 12 carries with a fumble. He also had a quick jump pass for a 50-yard gain to Destin Fier.

Giving Meagher support in the rushing game, Fier logged 62 yards on four carries, Lucas Rybinski added three carries for 34 yards and three other Vikings finished with double-digit rushing yards.

Lakeview reinserted itself into the game on its next possession. After being held to no gain on the drive’s first play, Tyden Marczak hit wide receiver Braylon Breyfogle with a pass behind the line of scrimmage. The Minneota defense quickly converged on what appeared to be a screen pass. Instead, Breyfogle found a streaking Landon Albertson wide-open downfield for a long touchdown, cutting the deficit to one possession.

Lakeview coach Scott Hanson said the play was something the team had been working on all week in practice and had planned on running early in the game. 

The touchdown pass was one of two consecutive scrimmage plays in which Breyfogle came up big for the Lakers. After the Vikings received the ensuing kickoff, quarterback Brody Larson attempted to match the Lakers’ energy with another deep pass downfield. Yet, Breyfogle was a ready ballhawk and intercepted the pass to give Lakeview the opportunity to tie the game.

“Defensively, I think we’ve done a pretty decent job all year defending the pass and Braylon has been a big part of that,” Hanson said of his team’s interception leader. “We had some momentum in the first quarter, just couldn’t capitalize on it. We had two interceptions tonight and one fumble recovery, so I think we won the turnover battle three-to-one, but we just can’t spot them as many points.”

While the Lakers seemed poised to get hot, Minneota cracked down defensively. After forcing a Laker punt, the Vikings marched down the field for Meagher’s second touchdown of the game. The Lakers advanced the ball to midfield to end the first quarter, but the Vikings came up with a stuff at the line of scrimmage on fourth-and-short to get the ball back and set up Meagher’s third touchdown for a 28-7 Viking lead.

The Viking defense didn’t force turnovers but continuously stymied the Lakeview offense. After another 3-and-out gave Minneota the ball at the 50-yard line, Meagher went to work outside the left tackle. He accelerated to beat the Laker’s defensive line and, after bouncing off one hard hit from a linebacker alone the sideline, took the ball to the house for a long touchdown and a 35-7 lead.

“We did a lot of good things [defensively]. They ran a kind of trick play against us and I told the kids, ‘You’re not going to see everything. Everyone’s going to put something in new every week,'” Johnston said. “That was something they put in for us and it worked for them. We weren’t disciplined, it was a good play by them, but after that we settled in and didn’t give up anything. I think we played pretty, pretty stout on defense.”

Minneota tried to bolster its passing game on the day but had its struggles at points. Brody Larson threw a pair of interceptions, but he also threw a pair of touchdowns on 14 attempts for 97 yards.

“We need Brody to make some reads. We had guys open tonight and he threw into double coverage or threw kind of the wrong ball. We’ve just got to get to a point where we’re making the right reads,” Johnston said. “We had a couple of balls get dropped, but you’ve just got to keep working on them… I think a lot of times, young kids go up there and predetermine who they’re going to throw to and he’s just got to take what they’re giving him.”

Brock Fier gave the Vikings a goalline touchdown on a reverse to make it 42-7 with five minutes to play in the second quarter. While that seemed like it would be it for the Minneota offense, they punched in another pair of touchdowns before halftime, the latter of which was set up by a fumble recovery after Minneota had thrown an interception. The score going into the locker room was 55-7.

Minneota scored the first points of the second half on a slow, methodical drive to make the score 62-7. Even with a running clock and the second- and third-stringers in, the Vikings offense continued to dominate and scored two more touchdowns before all was said and done.

The No. 1 Minneota Vikings’ record improves to 6-0 with the win. They’ll head to Madison to do battle with Lac qui Parle Valley (1-4) on Thursday at 7 p.m. before welcoming Dawson-Boyd (4-1) into K.P. Kompelien Field the week after for their regular-season finale. The Vikings defeated LQPV 67-0 last season. 

“We’ve got to stay healthy, get a lot of kids reps, get a lot of things out of a lot of different kids, and we need to continue to get that depth,” Johnston said of what his team needs as it approaches the postseason. “It’s not going to be an easy run to try to get there again, but we’re doing good things and I think this team keeps working on getting better every day.”

Lakeview falls to 2-4 on the season with the loss. Their schedule doesn’t get much easier as they’ll go on the road to take on No. 6 B.O.L.D. (4-1) on Friday at 7 p.m. before concluding the season against Lac qui Parle Valley the next week. When B.O.L.D. and Lakeview met last season, the Warriors defeated the Lakers 46-8. The remaining games have plenty of meaning for the Lakers as they jockey to avoid the play-in round of the section tournament.

“It all comes down to fundamentals and being disciplined,” Hanson said of the team’s approach to the final stretch. “There’s a week and a half of the season left. You have a game on Friday, then a short week, come back and play Wednesday, and then you go to the playoffs next Tuesday. So there’s going to be three games in a bout two weeks and we’ve just got to stick to our fundamentals.”

Lakeview stats were unavailable at the time of print.