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N.D. (NewsDakota.com) On a windy evening at the Biesiot Activities Center VCSU football coach Dennis McCulloch reached a milestone 100th career win as the Vikings claimed a 33-21 victory over Dickinson State.
Coach McCulloch now stands 100-76 in his career with VCSU. In his 18 seasons as the Vikings head coach, he has claimed five conference championships and been named conference coach of the year on five occasion. Saturday nights win give Valley City State a 3-1 overall record on the year.
Despite the fact both teams are in the North Star Athletic Association, Saturday’s game was not counted on the conference record. That didn’t seem to effect the games intensity as both squads laid out bruising hits and scored big plays.
With wind speeds gusting at 25mph, the pass happy Vikings struggled to move the ball in the opening period of play. With the wind at their backs, The Blue Hawks took advantage of that situation scoring on their opening drive when Myren Moore rushed in a 15 yard score.
Led by a 20 tackle night from Nick McBeain, the stubborn Vikings defense would not let the Hawks in the endzone again in the first half.
Valleys first score came late in the second quarter on a one yard run from Ian Keller. After forcing the Blue Hawks of the field in three plays, the Vikings would drive the ball in with just 22 seconds remaining in the half when Kurtis Walls introduced Jake Miller to the end zone for the first time this season on a two yard pass.
After a first half interception, Andre Peppers saved a Dakota State touchdown by forcing a fumble that was pounded on by fellow Viking Ethen Preston at the one yard line.
The Vikings offense followed that up with a 99 yard upwind touchdown drive. This time Antoine Griffin was the recipient of a 14 yards pass from Walls.
The Blue Hawks would keep the game interesting scoring two touchdowns in the fourth pulling to back to within five, but the Vikings slammed the door shut with 1:31 left to play when Griffin completed the hat trick on his third TD catch of the game.
Walls ended the game 13 of 25 for 126 years through the air. Griffin had 65 yards on 5 catches to go along with his three scores. Keller was the Vikings leading rusher ending the day with 29 carries for 90 yards and a touchdown.
The Vikings and Blue Hawks will meet up again on October 18th. Next week the Vikings make their way west on I-94 for the NSAA match up with the Jimmie.