{"id":275950,"date":"2023-09-25T08:35:18","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T13:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=275950"},"modified":"2023-09-25T08:35:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T13:35:19","slug":"vcsu-vikings-win-in-double-overtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=275950","title":{"rendered":"VCSU Vikings Win in Double Overtime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VALLEY CITY \u2013 The Viking defense came up with a game-clinching stop Saturday as the Valley City State football team pulled off a thrilling 24-21 double-overtime victory over Mayville State.
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With the Viking offense facing a 4th<\/sup>-and-3 in the first half of double overtime, VCSU head coach\u00a0Dennis McCulloch<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0made the decision to kick a field goal and rely on his defense. The decision paid off. Freshman kicker\u00a0Andrew Nielsen<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0calmly drilled the go-ahead 24-yard field, and then VCSU’s defense sealed the victory by stonewalling the Comets inside the 10-yard line.
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In a driving rain, VCSU’s\u00a0Riley Gerhardt<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0batted down a pass on 3rd<\/sup>-and-3 from the 7-yard line. Facing 4th<\/sup>-and-3, Mayville elected to go for it. VCSU linebacker\u00a0Malachi Torres<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0cut off Daniel Nevil’s rush near the sideline, forcing Nevil into a wild throw that fell incomplete and set off a Viking celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valley City State improves to 3-1 overall this season and is now 2-0 in conference play. Mayville State drops to 0-5 overall and 0-3 in the conference.
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For much of the first half, Mayville State held a lead. The Comets scored first to go up 7-0 and took a 14-7 lead into the locker room at halftime after Mason Ollman scored on a 28-yard rush late in the half. The Vikings shut out Mayville in the second half and the offense put together a 12-play, 65-yard drive in the third quarter, tying the game at 14-14 on a 1-yard touchdown run by quarterback\u00a0Avery Thorsgard<\/a><\/dfn>.
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Neither team could score the rest of the way, sending the game to overtime. Both teams scored touchdowns in the first overtime. The Comets struck first with a 2-yard run by Daniel Nevil, and then Thorsgard answered with a 10-yard scramble into the endzone. Nielsen drilled the pressure-packed extra point to force double overtime, setting up the exciting finish.
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The Comets finished with 358 total yards, including 194 on the ground. Valley City State rushed for 209 yards and had 265 yards of total offense.
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“Mayville had a great game plan coming in,” said VCSU head coach\u00a0Dennis McCulloch<\/a><\/dfn>. “They were able to establish the run and did that all day against us. I was very impressed with what they did against us today.”
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The Vikings had their own rushing success relying heavily on the legs of quarterback\u00a0Avery Thorsgard<\/a><\/dfn>. He carried the ball 23 times for 133 yards and two touchdowns.\u00a0Justice Bice<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0racked up 63 yards on 15 carries. Ka’Ua Nishigaya had one carry that he turned into a 13-yard touchdown run for VCSU’s first score of the game in the second quarter. Thorsgard went 8-for-18 passing for just 56 yards as VCSU’s offense did just enough to pull out the Homecoming win.
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“We have to play better,” said McCulloch. “We’re not going to win a conference championship playing at this level. We have the 2 best teams in our conference coming up next, and we have to play better.”
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Mayville State had a pair of running backs top 100 yards as Nevil rushed for 102 yards and a score and Ollman had 100 yards and a score. Quarterback Tim Salmon was 18-for-23 passing for 147 yards and a TD. Javeion Davison had four catches for 53 yards and a score.
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While the Comets totaled 358 yards of total offense, the Viking defense came up with big plays to keep points off the board. With the game tied at 14-14 in the fourth quarter, freshman cornerback\u00a0Emanuel Spiyee<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0made a diving interception in the end zone to squash a Comet scoring threat. Linebacker\u00a0Jahidi West<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0also made his 14th<\/sup>\u00a0career interception, which ties him for 4th<\/sup>\u00a0all-time in Viking history.
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Riley Gerhardt<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0and West were all over the field, combining for 39 tackles in the game. Gerhardt had a hand in 20 stops and tallied a sack and two tackles for loss. West totaled 19 tackles and 1.5 TFL, and\u00a0Levi Olson<\/a><\/dfn>\u00a0had 10 stops.
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Up next:<\/strong>\u00a0Valley City State (3-1, 2-0 NSAA) hosts conference favorite Dickinson State on Saturday, Sept. 30. Kickoff is at 3 p.m. from VCSU’s Lokken Stadium. Mayville State hosts Dakota State on Sept. 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VALLEY CITY \u2013 The Viking defense came up with a game-clinching stop Saturday as the Valley City State football team pulled off a thrilling 24-21 double-overtime victory over Mayville State.\u00a0With the Viking offense facing a 4th-and-3 in the first half of double overtime, VCSU head coach\u00a0Dennis McCulloch\u00a0made the decision to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":275951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275952,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275950\/revisions\/275952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/275951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}