ROCHESTER -- Entering Saturday's Southern Division college football game, Minnesota West needed a victory to claim a conference championship and secure a home playoff game.
Despite Rochester's 38-19 victory against the Bluejays, Minnesota West won a coin flip, and is the No. 1 seed from the Southern Division.
"You always like to go out and win it yourself," MW head coach Jeff Linder said. "The team needed to go out and take it from Rochester, and we just didn't get it done."
The Bluejays (7-2, 3-1) will host Mesabi Range Saturday at 1 p.m.
"We're excited," Linder said. "We have an opportunity to be in the playoffs. We were all in the gym today waiting for the phone call, and it was exciting to see."
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With three teams sharing the Southern Division championship, the playoffs came down to a coin flip Sunday afternoon.
Following alphabetical order, Central Lakes flipped tails, and MW followed with a second tails.
Rochester flipped last and had a heads, meaning it was the odd one out.
In Saturday's game, Rochester was able to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball en route to a victory in the season finale.
"We just had a hard time controlling the line of scrimmage," Linder said. "They have a tough front four, so we had a hard time establishing any type of run."
The Bluejays had 37 net yards rushing, led by 22 from quarterback Lon Garfield.
Seth Karlsrud led the Yellowjackets with 111 yards rushing on 20 attempts.
Garfield was 13-for-38 passing for 208 yards and a touchdown.
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Logan Korkow had 84 yards receiving, including a 50-yard touchdown reception.
Lucien Maddicks (three carries, three yards) scored on a 2-yard touchdown burst, and Garfield scored the other touchdown on a 2-yard keeper for MW.
The Yellowjackets had scoring plays of 15, 2, 1, 4 and 26 yards in the game.
"They had a couple of big plays, but most were just drives down the field," Linder said. "Defensively, we missed an incredible amount of tackles in their backfield."
Bill Blumberg had 11 tackles and a sack and a half, while Cody Gehrke had 10 tackles and half of a sack.
Alexander Neal and Gerald Jones each had an interception, while Mark Riley and Tyler Welp were each in on a sack.
MW 7 6 0 6 -- 19
RCTC 7 21 10 0 -- 38
