Rosemount lost more than 40 seniors from last year’s Class 6A state tournament team.
The Irish returned just two starters in 2015.
So you could say they’re rebuilding.
They’re also still winning.
Rosemount went on the road to beat Apple Valley 20-7 on Friday night to improve to 2-0 this season.
“They’re a top program in the state,” Apple Valley coach Chad Clendening said of the Irish. “And they do it by training kids and building them up in a system that they’re familiar with and they know. I know they lost a lot of kids from last year, but you could see from tonight, they fill in with kids that are disciplined and know what to do. They’re very well-coached.”
And they’re very physical. Rosemount ran the ball 35 times for 182 yards, with senior Blake Storholm and junior Alec Schimmel each rushing for touchdowns.
Rosemount coach Jeff Erdmann said the biggest thing with his team’s new starters is getting them adapted to varsity speed. They made major strides in that area even from Week 1 — when Rosemount came back to beat White Bear Lake 16-13 — to Week 2.
“Last week we learned a lot,” Erdmann said. “We made big improvements from last week to this week, so hopefully we can keep doing that.”
“We stepped it up pretty well,” Schimmel said. “We’re working hard in practice, and we’ve just got to keep working hard week to week.”
The game seemed to slow down for Rosemount senior quarterback Jared Hanson, who went 7 for 11 for 65 yards and a score just six days after completing only 4 of 22 passing attempts.
A 20-yard strike from Hanson to Simon Hatlen put the Irish up 14-0 just before the halftime break. Hanson found Hatlen, his No. 1 target, five times for 49 yards.
“Hanson can do that,” Erdmann said. “He had a solid game.”
As did Apple Valley’s offense for much of the evening, as it moved the ball into Rosemount territory multiple times. Junior quarterback Noah Sanders went 19 for 25 for 145 yards, but the Eagles capitalized for just one score, with Sanders finding Isaiah Hall on a 9-yard scoring pass in the fourth quarter.
Apple Valley (1-1), which sports a young club with many sophomores seeing action, hurt itself in crucial spots. The Eagles had 10 penalties for 75 yards, surrendered four Irish sacks and turned the ball over twice.
“We showed that we could do some good things at times,” Clendening said. “But we hurt ourselves with penalties and transition things with personnel changes and stuff. Those are things that are discipline stuff. … We have a lot of young kids, (Rosemount is) a good team and I think (our kids) get a little caught in the moment and got a little off focus. But there are times we did things well.”
Although Erdmann knows his Irish team has room to improve, he’s happy to see the early success.
“Our community, we expect that we’ve got to have good football,” he said. “Football is big in our community. These guys know it, they work hard in the offseason and it’s just nice to come out, play hard and have fun doing what we can do.”
