MANHATTAN — Manhattan's football team is now on the doorstep of completing the redemption tour it set out on after falling to Florence-Carlton in overtime in last season's Class B championship.
The Tigers will travel to Malta to face the Mustangs in Saturday's title game in a meeting between undefeated and top-seeded programs. Manhattan is making its fourth appearance in the championship since 2019 — claiming the Class B title in 2020 — while Malta is looking to claim its first crown since 2006.
Manhattan is coming off a 34-7 drubbing over 1E Red Lodge in the semifinals. Only two of the Tigers wins this season have been decided by one possession — an 8-6 victory over Glasgow in Week 4 and a 16-11 win over Eureka in the quarterfinals.
"We just look to go 1-0 every week," said senior running back Kaysen Konkol of his team's mentality this season, one that has consistently resulted in blowout wins. "We don't care about the games in the future, we're just looking at the game we have ahead of us this week."
Meanwhile the Mustangs also have only seen two of its wins this season decided by a score or less another similarity between the two programs. Malta is shaping up to be Manhattan's toughest test of the season, and the Tigers know they'll need to play their best football this Saturday.
"We're gonna have to execute on both sides of the ball," said Manhattan. head football coach Wes Kragt. "Win the turnover battle and play a really solid game. They have such great athletes over there. We need to stop the big play ability and go from there."
Said George Stenberg, another senior running back: "We know Malta's gonna be pretty good. We gotta focus in and we gotta ride in the same values that we have all year. Stay disciplined and give it everything we have all game.
"We've been in this spot before so gotta stay relaxed, stay confident, and just try our best."
