High school football: Chanhassen eliminates St. Thomas Academy in Class 5A quarterfinals

In the early going, it looked like St. Thomas Academy and Chanhassen picked up where they left off from last year’s Class AAAAA championship game that the Storm won, 34-31, in overtime.

On the third play from scrimmage Saturday at Osseo High School, STA junior running back Dominic Baez shot through the defense for a 66-yard touchdown. When the Storm jumped offside on the extra point kick, QB Chase Young ran in a two-point conversion.

The Storm responded quickly to cut the margin to 8-7 with just 4:08 gone in the game. Unfortunately for the Cadets, the next play from scrimmage resulted in a fumbled snap that the Storm recovered deep in STA territory.

Five plays later, QB Nathan Ramler found Coleman Zielinski for a touchdown pass, and the Storm (8-3) went on to a 38-21 Class 5A quarterfinal victory.

“The last three weeks, we were unable to sustain momentum because of turnovers,” said STA coach Travis Welch. “You’re not going to win many games if you lose the turnover battle.”

In all, STA committed six turnovers and had trouble containing Ramler.

“They didn’t do anything we weren’t expecting,” Welch said.

In other words, the defense had to contend with Ramler’s accurate arm. The junior connected on his first nine passes, 20 of his first 22 and had four TD tosses.

The Cadets, however, didn’t back down. Trailing 21-8 late in the first half, Young, who was a tight end last season, engineered a nifty 85 second drive that ended with the senior running it in from two yards out for a score to cut the halftime deficit to 21-15.

“After Maximus (Sims) graduated, we looked around and decided to use this big guy as a running QB,” Welch said.

As it turned out, Young carried the ball more than Baez, rushing 18 times for 80 yards, while Baez had 10 carries for 82 yards.

Ramler’s fourth TD strike in the third quarter made it 28-15. But the Cadets responded with a seven minute drive that was capped by Young’s TD strike to Baez. The extra point was blocked and the game was still within reach at 28-21.

The Storm, however, were also resilient. Ramler’s 39 yard bullet to Kade Bush set up a field goal that pushed the margin to 31-21.

The next three STA possessions ended with interceptions, and Chanhassen added a late score to make the final score look more lopsided than the game really was.

Welch was asked to reflect on the Cadets’ 7-4 season. “At the start of the season, I asked the team how many guys had played in a state tournamernt game,” he said. “Seven hands went up. We had 42 juniors on this team.

“When I ask the question next year, I’m guessing 34 hands will go up. Experience matters.”