Kindred Vikings Back On Practice Field Preparing to Defend Championship

Kindred Looks to Defend First-Ever State Championhip

KINDRED, N.D.– The Kindred Vikings won their first stat football championship last season. Now defending their crown the Vikings have experienced what it took last season and what it will take to make another run in 2022.

“It sets up a blue print. We know how we were successful last year and we know what we have to do to get to that point again and it’s going to be exciting to try and get there you know and that’s the joy of coming out and playing football is trying to get better every single day and win every Friday night and hopefully you put yourself in a position to be where we were last year,” said head coach, Matt Crane.

While last year’s seniors are now graduated, the Vikings have passed down the intangibles that the program is built on.

“We lost a lot of good leaders last year so our seniors will have to fill in those spots,” said Mason Nipstad.

“We do a lot of character building we do a lot of team building stuff and these seniors have been doing that since they were freshman and they know by now what it means to be a Viking. So we expect those seniors to pass that information down, to pass that legacy down to the freshman so they understand how it is to practice, how it is to go every single day and how to carry yourself on and off the field so those are high expectations that we have for ’em but we set them early and we preach it often,” said Crane.

Having won the school’s first championship last season, the Vikings know that their opponents will be more motivated than ever to beat them.

“A lot of teams are wanting to give their best game against us since we won last year and hopefully get a win over us but we are gonna keep trying our best to not let that happen,” said Masen Allmaras.

Despite losing pieces to graduation like everyone else the Vikings feel confident in their identity heading into the 2022 season.

“The strengths, hopefully we’re able to run the ball. We return a lot of our linemen, we return our all-state running back and so we’re gonna be able to start there and hopefully we’re able to be a little more dynamic than that but we’re going to be able to lean on the trenches a little bit with a lot of returning seniors up front,” said Crane.