The 36th annual Minnesota High Schoool All-Star football game was held Saturday at Husky Stadium on the campus of St. Cloud State University (a very nice venue, by the way. Located on the southern edge of the campus, next to the Mississippi River and the National Hockey Center)

We didn’t cover this game this year — another casualty of the well-documented problems within this industry. But I’ve covered this game many times in the past and have found that the Outstate team generally plays with a chip on it’s collective shoulder. (Largely due to its own perception that fans and media consider them of lesser quality than players from the Twin Cities metro area. From my point of view, that’s simply not true, but it’s an interesting topic and worth discussing at some point down the road).

As a result, I’ve witnessed some the Outstate team manhandle the Metro team on more than one occasion, including 2005, when current Gopher wide receiver Eric Decker and East Grand Forks quarterback Nick Mertens were men among boys in Outstate rout.

But the Metro came to play Saturday, rolling to a 54-13 victory over the Outstate. It was the third victory in the last four years for the Metro team and evened the series at 15-15 (From 1974 through 1979, teams were divided by North and South, rather than Metro and Outstate). The 54 points scored is a record for one team in the game.

Coon Rapids QB Blair Townsend threw three touchdown passes — two in the first half as the Metro took a 27-13 halftime lead — and was named the Metro Offensive MVP. Mahtomedi running back Stephen Johnson ran for two touchdowns and Lakeville North wide receiver Tyler Swanson caught pair of scoring passes.

I’d sure love to hear a little more about the game — who stood out, who didn’t, etc. If you were at the game and would like to share a little about what you saw, please do.

Jim Paulsen

This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.