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Clutch defense lifts Wayzata over Champlin Park

By BRIAN STENSAAS, Star Tribune, 10/29/11, 7:30PM CDT

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An interception and fourth-down stop helped the Trojans to a 21-14 win.

Erik Roti and Antonio Ford carried the load. Chris Wipson ensured that their efforts weren’t wasted.

The senior running backs combined to rush 33 times for 286 yards and all three scores in top-seed Wayzata’s 21-14 victory over fourth-seed Champlin Park in the Class 5A, Section 5 semifinals Saturday afternoon.

But it was Wipson’s clutch plays on defense that had coach Brad Anderson raving afterward while standing on the Trojans home turf. Anderson deemed Wipson the player of the game as his team knelt to receive the postgame address from the veteran coach.

It was a field littered with chomped fingernails.

“We thought all week this would be a good game [and] that offensively they would give us fits,” Anderson said. “Give them credit. They threw us off-line, but it’s a victory. And you love all victories.”

That mantra was something Anderson had to get his players to believe in. There was little hooting and hollering after this one, not like the previous four times Wayzata took on the Rebels in the Section 5 playoffs.

The two have met each year since 2007. Wayzata outscored Champlin Park 127-43 in those games.

On Saturday, the Rebels’ Michael Sales was a one-man show. He rushed 27 times for 176 yards and scored both Champlin Park touchdowns from a yard out. The second was set up by a 24-yard pitch-and-pass from Sales to Paris Woods.

If not for Wipson’s first-quarter interception return to the 1-yard line, which set up Ford’s first score, and his clutch fourth-down stuff behind the line of scrimmage on the Rebels’ final offensive play of the game, things could have been way different.

Wipson called it “probably the toughest game we’ve had all year.”

“We have to play better,” he added. “[It was] a wake-up call and it will give us more intensity in the coming weeks.”

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