High school football: Blaine beats Rosemount to advance in playoffs

On a night when Blaine quarterback Sam Shaughnessy supplied more than his share of heroics, it was left to Bengals kicker Jared Killian to close things out in dramatic fashion.

Killian connected on a 29-yard field goal as time expired, lifting his team past resilient Rosemount 38-36 in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs on Friday at Bengal Stadium.

It capped a record-breaking night for Shaughnessy, a senior dual threat with both his arm and legs. He rushed for 270 yards and three touchdowns, while throwing for 172 yards and two more touchdowns.

His efforts on the ground made him the top single-season (1,433 yards) and career (1,706) rusher in program history.

“Our offense has always been able to respond when we’ve needed to,” said Shaughnessy, whose team (6-3) will play at Forest Lake (7-2) in the second round next Friday.

“We came through when we needed to tonight and that’s all that matters.”

The game-winning drive started at the Blaine 29-yard line with 1:22 remaining and came after Irish senior Gavin Caswell scored on a 5-yard touchdown run, then ran in the ensuing two-point conversion to put his team on top 36-35.

As he did all night, Shaughnessy overcame adversity, shaking off a pair of sacks to make a series of key completions, then breaking free on a run that took the ball to the Irish 12 with 2.9 seconds left on the clock.

That brought on Killian for the field goal.

“There was a lot of adrenaline and nerves,” Killian said. “I didn’t know (if the kick was good). I had to look up to see if it went through. I was really nervous when it came off my foot. But seeing it go through the goal posts was a great feeling.”

Not so much for those on the Irish sideline though.

Rosemount, which won its season opener but had lost seven straight entering the postseason, never quit — tying the score at 21 on a 68-yard touchdown pass from Caswell to senior Jack Roth with 5:56 left in the third quarter, then again at 28 when senior Finn Biegel rushed for this third touchdown of the night with 10:06 remaining.

“I was proud of our guys,” said Irish coach Jeff Erdmann, whose team finished its season 1-8. “We competed.

“We had a good week of prep. When you’re 1-7 and you have a great week of prep going into a first-round playoff game, that tells you a lot about the guys. We came in here and competed like crazy.”

But so did Shaughnessy, who weathered two first-half interceptions that set up Biegel touchdown runs to make plays that tied the score — first on a 5-yard touchdown run up the middle early in the second quarter, then by engineering a 76-yard drive in the final minutes of the first half, capped by a 4-yard touchdown catch by senior Kamden Leitheiser with 1.1 seconds remaining on the clock that deadlocked the score at 14 at halftime.

“The term dog is overused,” Blaine coach Mike Law said. “But Sam Shaughnessy is a dog. No matter what we ask him to do, he gets it done. He leads that group offensively, and when he’s hot, it’s hard to beat us.

“We’re just excited to get another game, another opportunity to watch him be special.”