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Blue Hawks soar above Valley City State, 34-10

gaylon wm. parker, the dickinson press, n.d.
·6 min read

Oct. 2—VALLEY CITY, N.D. — There's just no stopping the Dickinson State University football team right now, and after a 34-10 win over Valley City State on the road there's no reason to believe their four-game winning streak will be halted any time in the immediate future. The game brought to a close a month-long, three-game road-warrior trip for the Blue Hawks, who will now be preparing for all the DSU homecoming week festivities and trying to get ready for this-Saturday's game versus Dakota State University on Saturday Oct. 7 at 1 p.m. in the friendly home confines of the Biesiot Activities Center here in Dickinson (finally!).

Both teams came into the game with identical records at 3-1 (2-0 in the NSAA), but the Vikings left with another notch in the "L" column and the "W" for DSU means they stand alone at the top of the standings at 4-1 overall.

The game at Valley City State followed a similar pattern to the last-few contests, with DSU building a solid halftime lead on the strength of an opening-drive TD that put an exclamation-point on an 8-play masterclass by Will Madler and his duo of standout Dickinson-native receivers — Noah Sickler and Kaden Kuntz — who combined for a pair of receptions of 16 and 24 yards, respectively, and another steady 11-yard score from two-time North Star Athletic Association Offensive Player of the Week Braden Zuroff, who ended up with another massive outing at 178 yards with a pair of touchdowns and 12 added yards of receiving on the day.

"We talk about (building an early lead) all the time, and especially that's tough to do on the road but our guys just do a great job on that and we've been able to do that with our road games and the one home game this year: To move the football and run the football and that's been a big key to our success, early-on," Blue Hawks head coach Pete Stanton said.

The ever-reliable Chase Miller drilled a 20-yard field goal to give the Blue Hawks a 10-0 advantage at the 5:32 mark in the first quarter and that was shortly followed by Zuroff's second touchdown of the day, a gritty 45-yard run that was part of a two-play drive that began at the Blue Hawk 38 in good field position. Madler connected with wideout Paco Baltazar for 16 yards and then delivered the ball into Zuroff's capable hands and he took over from there with a touchdown at the 1:28 mark of the first quarter for a 17-0 DSU lead, and they didn't need any more points after that.

The defense, as has been the case nearly all-season-long, took over from there and stifled the Vikings attack and held the home-team to 205 total yards and an unbelievable 7 (yes, SEVEN) yards on the ground in the entire game. Meanwhile, the offense — led by Zuroff's fleet-feet — ripped off a gargantuan total-yardage haul of 378 yards.

"The guys have done a really good job of feeding off each-other; it hasn't been perfect but our guys are really playing hard," Standon said. "That was the one thing we emphasized this last week: On defense, we thought in the Waldorf game we just stayed out there too long and gave up a couple big plays and we did a better job at Valley ... particularly against the run."

With the DSU passing attack, the natives are always capable of getting restless, and while the Vikings were able to claw out a field goal with 10:01 left in the first-half, the Blue Hawks came out of the tunnel, gunning. Sickler ramped up his game and snared a 16-yard scoring strike from Madler in the third-quarter for a 24-3 lead, and wound-up with a team-high 7 receptions and 79 yards on the afternoon, while Cameron Sheppard reeled in 3 catches for 37 of his own.

VCSU managed a touchdown to claw back to 24-10, but the damage was done. A Miller field goal from 39-yards out extended the advantage to 27-10 at the 13:49 mark in the final period, but running back Darion Brown decided to add a 12-yard touchdown scamper to the box score as a cherry on the top of the 34-10 sundae.

"We just talked about this to our guys: Homecoming's for a lot of people, but your job at homecoming is to go and win a football game and that's what we really emphasize," Standon said. "We've got a mature bunch of guys who understand that and know they need to go and play well and go do their jobs."

The homecoming events began with a Sunday, Oct. 1 event at Phat Fish Brewery for DSU students only, and continued with Monday, Oct. 2's coffee-and-donuts, a trucker-hat-do-it-yourself design class for the big game on Saturday, and a homecoming concert at Stickney Auditorium during the night at 7 p.m. that was free and open to the public. From there, the Wednesday events will feature a hypnotist and comedy show at the Student Center Ballroom, while Thursday's events include an art program as part of The Empty Bowls Charity event from 3-6 p.m. at may Hall 303, an alumni social at 7 p.m. at the Dickinson Eagles Club and the Blue Hawk pep rally at Scott Gym at 7:30 and Buster's Bowling Bonanza at Paragon Bowl from 9:30-onward.

Friday will feature an alumni honors luncheon at Roosevelt Grand Dakota at 11 a.m., the all-years football reunion at various locations throughout the city starting at 3 p.m. and the hall-of-fame banquet at 5 in the Roosevelt Grand Dakota with a movie and s'mores closing out the eventing at 8 p.m. in the Student Center for DSU students only.

The big game on Saturday will be preceded by a 9 a.m. homecoming parade on the DSU campus for the public and the DSU Football Tailgate hosted by the Touchdown Club at the BAC starting at 10 a.m. with the game thereafter at 1 p.m.

For more information about the Dickinson State University Blue Hawks football program, please visit

https://www.dsubluehawks.com/sports/fball/index

and/or keep reading The Dickinson Press.