Three pregame speeches and an ESPN 'SportsCenter' top play: Inside 'weird' three-day Dakota Bowl
David Alpers III wanted Monday to be a normal night, so he came home, ate and got started on some homework.
He had college algebra and anatomy tests over the next two days, but he didn’t want to get to bed too late. He was sore.
After all, he had just played 24 minutes of the Dakota Bowl before, for the second time in a row, the game was postponed because of severe weather. He made a nice play, too: A one-handed, helmet-aided catch after a couple bobbles that set up a scoring drive for the Knights. It was halftime then, and O'Gorman High School of Sioux Falls, S.D. led 7-6 with the second half set to start 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Alpers couldn’t stay in game mode for 24 hours, though.
“I would have been mentally drained by the time the game starts,” Alpers said.
He was in bed by 10 p.m.
The next morning, he woke up and walked to his bathroom. As he brushed his teeth, he scrolled through his phone, which was blowning up with texts of a video.
The video was his catch. The No. 1 play on the ESPN "SportsCenter" top 10 plays.
"Wow,” Alpers said. “I didn't even think of it being on that level of a play."
It was, as senior linebacker Anders Mattecheck describes it in a thank you to all the fans who made it out to the third day of the event, a “weird” Dakota Bowl for the Knights.
But O’Gorman came out on top, beating Roosevelt (also of Sioux Falls), 14-12, in the three-gameday marathon that ended four days after it started. There was an ESPN "SportsCenter" top play, three pregame speeches that were “all good,” O’Gorman head coach Jayson Poppinga said, and a 24-hour halftime adjustment.
In the end, it was worth the wait, Knights wide receiver Manny Struck said.
“This has never happened in the history of football,” Poppinga joked. “But, we got through it.”
Four days earlier on Saturday, O’Gorman was alive. Despite the darkened sky overhead, fans were loud, overflowing off the stands and blocking the exits. Those who arrived almost 45 minutes before game time had no choice but to park far behind the school, a 5-minute walk from McEnearney Field. Then the rain came down, and instead of laughter, there were screams.
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Poppinga said the energy of “the Dakota Bowl” died that day as fans rushed to their cars to eventually learn the game would be played Monday.
It was just “a game,” he said.
“A game” started strong for O’Gorman on Monday. Alpers provided the highlight and running back James Lichty punched in the touchdown.
The O'Gorman Knights led 7-0 and, after giving up a touchdown on a run by Tyree Nave, stopped a two-point attempt by the Roosevelt Rough Riders.
But then there was lightning again. The game was postponed, and so began the longest halftime adjustment that O’Gorman players had ever experienced.
Poppinga said he told his team to take care of themselves (nothing different than a normal postgame) and players tried to put the game out of their mind as they went through their days at school, still wearing the jersey from yesterday, as they do every gameday.
Struck went to the training room in the morning, got massages, got cupping and went about his day as normally as possible. Alpers did the same, but he did have to get through some light joking around about his name having been mentioned on national television that morning. Before the 4 p.m. local time gametime, they were released from school. Alpers went to the locker room and threw in his headphones.
O’Gorman was back.
Tuesday developed just as Monday had. Knights quarterback Bennett Dannenbring looked to settle from the day earlier, O’Gorman kept stopping Roosevelt on defense. O’Gorman had control, it just needed the dagger.
Then, at the end of the third quarter, Struck lined up in man-to-man and ran a post: “You got to love that situation as a receiver.”
He cut inside and was all alone.
“Just throw me the ball,” he thought.
Dannenbring did. He caught it and his legs went numb, but he kept going. The O’Gorman crowd exploded louder than they had in the past 24 hours. Fans jumped up and down as the Knights got the play that, after four days, would be the one that would help them pull away. After the final whistle, they rushed onto the field.
“A game” felt like the Dakota Bowl. And it was finally over.
“I was definitely tired of it,” Alpers said. “Tomorrow it will be nice to just have a normal practice.”
Follow Sioux Falls Argus Leader reporter Michael McCleary on Twitter @mikejmccleary.