VALLEY CITY, N.D. – The Comet football team went into their final game of the 2013 season looking to do something that hasn't been done since 1990, bring home a conference championship.

It was fitting that to do that, the Comets had to go to Shelly Ellig Field and take down the Valley City State University Vikings. Mayville State defeated the Vikings 14-9 in the 2013 homecoming game earlier this season.

It was a cold and windy afternoon in Valley City and the Vikings leaned heavily on running back Derek Elliot who had a game high 44 carries. He scored the first touchdown of the game late in the first quarter on a 2 yard rush to give VCSU a 7-0 lead.

The Vikings got another score on a Thomas Cortez field goal and then again later when Kurtis Walls found Mark Zinke on a 6 yard completion for a touchdown. The Comets fell into an early hole and were down 17-0 at the break.

The Comets fired back in the second half when Keith Osgood threw a 13 yard touchdown to Taylor Kunkel with 13:17 remaining in the third quarter to close the gap to 17-6. Elliot got back into the flow of the offense when he got free for a 49 yard touchdown run on the next possession to take back the momentum. When the third quarter came to a close the Vikings were ahead 23-6.

Walls threw his second touchdown of the day early in the fourth when Colby Lum scored on a 20 yard throw and catch.
MSU kept fighting and scored their final touchdown of the 2013 season when Osgood hit Lance Jackson for a 33 yard touchdown with 6:16 remaining.

Walls added on more touchdown pass late as the game, and season, ended with the Vikings coming out on top 37-12.
The Comet offense was led by the arm and legs of Osgood who finished his final game with 112 yards passing (2 TDs) and 44 yards rushing. Lance Jackson and Taylor Kunkel each caught four passes from Osgood. Jackson led with 86 yards and a touchdown while Kunkel followed with 67 yards and a touchdown.

Defensively MSU got 13 tackles out of Travis Ahlgren, nine out of Rashad Flanders and William Ervin, and eight out of Aaron Davis, Jacob Grosz, Raven Smith, and Aaron Johnson. Brogan Thoren had 1.5 tackles for a loss totaling seven yards.

"It was a tough way to end the season but our seniors did a great job leading the group for us. The sting of this loss will be felt for a while but after that fades the reality of a winning season will sink in" Coach Schlieve remarked about the season ending loss.

Mayville State University (7-4, 2-2) has to look at the season overall as a success. "Getting to 7 wins and having a 5 game winning streak is a big step forward in our program development" Schlieve continued. After falling to 0-2 early in the season the Comets won seven of their final nine games, including a five game winning streak. It all culminated with an opportunity to play for a conference championship.

His final thoughts on the game and the season were a credit to his coaching staff and our alumni, "The assistant coaches have done an excellent job and are the reason that we are able to in the position we are in right now. We want to thank all of the alums for the support they have shown us, we could not have done this without you."