Football: Willmar Cardinals, Rocori Spartans ready to rumble in 2AAAA semis

Oct. 30—WILLMAR — The gantlet begins again for the Willmar football team.In the regular season, the Skyway Copper District games with Rocori, Marshall and Hutchinson are the toughest in the Cardinals' schedule. The district has a combined record of 25-9.With the regular season over, those Copper teams are all that remain in the Section 2AAAA playoffs.Willmar is ready for the battle to begin anew. The top-seeded Cardinals square off with fourth-seeded Rocori in the 2AAAA semifinals at 3 p.m. Saturday at Hodapp Field."It's a tremendous challenge," said Willmar head coach Jon Konold. "The top four teams are left in the section and those are the teams that we played consecutively during the regular season. It's a grind."Saturday is gonna be a tremendous challenge for us. They got some really skilled kids."The winner advances to the section championship game, set for 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6 at the high seed. Willmar is going for its first section final since 2018."The end goal wasn't to go 8-0 (in the regular season)," said Cardinals senior running back/linebacker Hudson Sjoberg. "It's to go to state. We're really disciplined with that. We're excited to play football."As part of an undefeated regular season,back in Week 4.At the time, the Spartans were 0-4 under first-year head coach Alex Larson. But since that time, Rocori has gone 4-1, including a 33-12 victory against fifth-seeded St. Peter on Tuesday."It was an absolute roller coaster starting 0-4," said Larson, who was a three-time All-American tight end at Division III St. John's University. "Our guys' resilience to keep stacking and trusting the process of what we're trying to do, that's been evident. I'm just super proud of how we've battled back and (see) the trajectory of where we're going."from the Willmar game after being ejected the previous week in a loss to Hutchinson. In looking back at the footage in the Week 4 loss and subsequent game film, Larson knows Willmar will not give Rocori much to work with in hopes of an upset."They do a lot of things the right way," Larson said of the Cardinals. "They don't let themselves beat themselves. They play really clean football. They obviously got a lot of great athletes and obviously are super well-coached. ... They're really pristine on fundamentals and that's pretty evident on the film."The Rocori game was one of the rare times Willmar did not win the turnover battle, 3-1."We kind of gave them some opportunities," Konold said. "If we take care of the football a little bit, the score is a little different. That's gonna be a big key for us. We're making sure we're taking care of the football."And still, Willmar built a 21-0 halftime lead. Sjoberg ran for 114 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries. Quarterback Alex Hoppe completed 55.6% of his passes for 197 yards and two touchdowns. The defense put up four sacks, including two by Jackson Carlson.Like Willmar, Rocori is battle-tested from district play. That helped in the Spartans' quarterfinal win against St. Peter. Quarterback Tyson Zauhar completed 8 of 13 passes for 195 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. Mayson Wahnschaffe caught six passes for 111 yards and two touchdowns. That helped propel an offense that out-gained St. Peter 487-196."Hutch, Willmar and Marshall are all top-tier programs," Larson said. "Seeing that early in the year, it helped us build confidence (going) into the playoffs."The Cardinals and their 23 seniors aren't hard-pressed for motivation to win on Saturday. The Spartans ended Willmar's season in 2025 in the 2AAAA semifinals by a score of 17-15."That's been a point the kids have brought up this week," Konold said. "They remember the feeling of losing by two. ... That still sits with them and it's motivation for our guys to play better."Revenge is a motivator, but not the end goal. Willmar wants to get through its district rivals on the way to the program's first state berth in eight years."You go week by week and prepare like always," Sjoberg said. "Obviously you want to win this one because they beat us last year in the playoffs. The goal is to get that back to them. But we're just playing football like usual, just reading our keys and doing normal practices."