Harley Rizzs runs for career-high 216 yards as St. Laurence tops Richmond-Burton in Class 4A playoffs

RICHMOND – St. Laurence has been battling numerous injuries all year long, a few of which that were key to a pair of tough losses for the Vikings to end the regular season.

But you never would have known it watching them take down Richmond-Burton 35-17 in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs Friday night.

The Vikings ripped off four touchdowns on plays of 64 yards or more as they advanced to the second round and served notice that last year’s 4A runner-up will be anything but easy in this year’s postseason.

“It’s been a roller-coaster year,” St. Laurence coach Adam Nissen said. “We lost a lot of kids for the season. I felt like it was a new team every week. I think we’re just starting to get back healthy, which obviously just in time for the playoffs is a good thing. If you look at us Week 1 to Week 10, we look very different.”

One of those players to miss time this season was Harley Rizzs. He showed no ill effects from his high ankle sprain, tallying a career-high 216 yards rushing and four total touchdowns.

Rizzs even got into the action in the passing game with help from another player with an injury this year. Quarterback Chase Kwiatkowski returned after missing most of the second half of the season and threw a beautiful pass down the sideline to Rizzs that turned into a 75-yard touchdown to make it 14-0 with 4:02 to go in the first half.

Richmond-Burton got a 20-yard field goal from Trey Maziarz to cut it to 14-3 at halftime, but Rizzs added scoring runs of 75 and 65 yards on similar run calls early in the second half to all but put the game away at 28-3.

“I feel I could compare this to Week 2 [a 42-7 win over Evanston] when we probably had all of our guys healthy like coach was saying,” Rizzs said of the offensive production. “It was probably the best offensive performance we’ve put up in a few weeks. I’m really glad we did that, and I’m proud.

“As a senior personally, and I know my other seniors can agree with me, the stakes were high and we weren’t going home. That was the plan. We did not want to go home.”

St. Laurence would add one more long scoring run, a 64-yarder by Cory Les, who finished with 103 yards rushing.

Richmond-Burton did have a few highlights late. Hunter Carley scored on runs of 5 and 57 yards to finish with 127 for the game.

The Rockets were further hurt by two turnovers as they saw a six-game winning streak come to a close. Still, coach Mike Noll was proud of what the season became after a tough 1-2 start.

“When we were 1-2, we challenged the kids to respond, all of them, individually and as a team,” he said. “And they did. Heck, if we got a little bit better draw, I think we could win a couple of playoff games. But they were just too much for us tonight.”