A game in late-August is just the start to a season that Stillwater and Lakeville North hope goes until mid-November.

Both teams enter the season ranked in the top 10 after each lost in the state quarterfinals last season and have expectations of getting at least that far again this year.

The Panthers are off to a better start.

Sam Ripplinger scored a minute into the game, Lakeville North got two late scores and beat Stillwater 27-7 on Thursday in a semi-soggy season-opening matchup of Class 6A heavyweights that wasn’t so much about the two highly touted signal callers.

Rather it was the guys behind Stillwater’s Nick Kinsey and Lakeville North’s Riley Grossman who garnered much of the game’s yardage. Ripplinger rushed for 174 yards for the Panthers; Emilio Rosario-Matias 139 yards for the Ponies.

But the key play was a huge stop by the Lakeville North defense.

Down 14-7 early in the fourth quarter, Stillwater quickly got to midfield. After a third-down stop by Carter Crawford, Gavin Casey stopped Kinsey a yard short of the sticks with 8:26 to play.

The next time Stillwater touched the ball, it was down two scores with less than three minutes remaining.

That’s because Ripplinger capped a 10-play, 53-yard drive with a 9-yard touchdown run.

Down by two scores, Kinsey was strip-sacked by Reece Hunt and Ethan Rozmarin recovered the ball in the end zone less than 30 seconds later to make the final score somewhat deceiving.

Stillwater turned the ball over three times. Lakeville North had zero.

For Lakeville North, its ground-and-pound running game is in good hands with Ripplinger behind an offensive line that was in control much of the night, and its defense was staunch against one of the state’s top passers.

Things could not have started out much better for the home team.

On the first play from scrimmage, Ripplinger took a handoff, burst up the middle, cut a bit to his left and was caught at the Stillwater 1-yard line. He scored from there on the next play.

Ripplinger ran for 812 yards — nearly 74 per game — and six touchdowns last season. Sawyer Wilkie and his nearly 1,500 yards graduated, meaning Ripplinger is likely “the guy” this season.

Stillwater, unofficially, had 20 yards of offense in the first half, going three-and-out on five of its six series, and losing a fumble on the fourth play of the other.

Lakeville North had a chance to add to its lead after Roman Johnson recovered a Stillwater fumble, but turned the ball over on downs at the Ponies’ 26 midway through the second quarter.

Bouncing back, Grossman — a Minnesota Duluth commit — perfectly lobbed a pass to Lane Johnson for a 24-yard touchdown late in the frame for a 14-0 halftime lead.

Rosario-Matias, who led Stillwater with 727 rushing yards last season, was responsible for 78 yards of an 80-yard scoring drive that got Stillwater within a score early in the third quarter.

His 48-yard dash to the end zone included a couple of broken tackles and a late burst of speed.

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The latest version of ’80s rockers Motley Crue headlined the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Thursday night and, judging by the empty seats, their appeal has become more … selective.

Some 8,769 fans did show up and paid as much as $207 a ticket for the utterly underwhelming 85-minute show. Just two years ago, the Crue played for 42,212 folks at U.S. Bank Stadium, although they were joined by Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

Maybe, just maybe, word has gotten out that lead singer Vince Neil can’t sing. They opened Thursday’s show with “Primal Scream,” which was really more of a Primal Squeal given Neil’s pinched, nasal vocals. This problem is not new for the band and their current approach seems to be to slather his voice in electronic effects and bury it in the mix. As for Neil himself, he skipped a lot of lyrics and often pointed his microphone to the crowd in an attempt to make them do his work for him.

Another possible stumbling block for longtime followers is the absence of guitarist and founding member Mick Mars. He has long struggled with the chronic form of arthritis ankylosing spondylitis and departed the group in October 2022 under mysterious circumstances. The rest of the band immediately announced former Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 was taking his place. Mars has since sued his former bandmates, alleging they were trying to force him out.

His unique presence — Mars wore heavy makeup, dressed in black and rarely moved — was certainly missed Thursday night. John 5, who is nearly 20 years younger than Mars, darted back and forth across the stage, showing as much energy as bassist Nikki Sixx, the guy who seems most invested in keeping the Crue going.

Where Mars had a noisy, chaotic quality to his guitar sound, John 5 plays much cleaner, giving songs like “Too Fast for Love,” “Shout at the Devil” and “Looks That Kill” a different and less distinct vibe. His lengthy solo midway through the show proved to be less than thrilling. Still, John 5 did appear to have some actual chemistry with Sixx, something that was largely absent with Mars.

The set list focused on a dozen of the hits, a ridiculous medley of covers and a new one, “Dogs of War.” Given that the latter was just released, one might think the band would have written a song that the 2024 Neil could handle, but that was not the case.

Oh, and that medley — Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll, Part 2,” Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” (Motley Crue’s 1985 cover gave them their breakthrough hit), the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.,” the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” and the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)” — proved that not only can Neil not sing his own band’s songs, he’s even worse attempting other people’s hits. (Paul McCartney should sue Neil for what he did to “Helter Skelter.”)

Storms threatened the show and the Grandstand’s doors opened late due to lightning on site. But beyond a light sprinkle before Motley Crue, the weather held up, with a bit of a breeze that killed off any lingering humidity. Drummer Tommy Lee referenced it when he announced to the crowd that “Mother Nature brought on a wet T-shirt contest.” He then, as he does, asked the women in the crowd to show him their breasts, which some of them did, as well as enough men for Lee to joke about it.

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East Ridge was known in recent years for its potent passing attack, led by prolific gunslinger Tanner Zolnosky, who’s now at Western Illinois.

But in Thursday’s 28-14 victory in its season opener at rival Park in Cottage Grove, the Raptors stuck almost exclusively to the ground. East Ridge ran 56 times for 193 yards in the win.

Was that a sign of things to come?

“I don’t 100 percent know if I see it like that, but I like it,” said East Ridge fullback Jacob Merchlewitz, who had nine totes himself and ran in a touchdown. “That’s just how I grew up playing football, and it’s the fun side of football, I think. I don’t know if we’ll continue to do it. It’s working. We’ve got to make sure we continue to keep working on every aspect.”

But East Ridge coach Dan Fritze hinted after the game that game plan Thursday had more to do with the torrential downpours than anything else. The kickoff was delayed 90 minutes by Thursday’s storms, and the rain didn’t let up for seemingly the entire contest.

“That was our plan going in,” Fritze said. “We just made a commitment that … we’re going to run the ball, and get up front and control the ball. That first half, it felt like we had the ball the whole half. Anytime a team can do that, you should do it.”

Park safety Zack Carr, left, breaks up a pass intended for East Ridge player Kyle Frendt during the first half of the at Park High School in Cottage Grove Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Craig Lassig / Special to the Pioneer Press)

And East Ridge certainly has in the past. The Raptors’ run to the state title game in 2015 was powered by a dominant rushing attack. That team featured a premier offensive line, an elusive quarterback and a star running back.

Frankly, East Ridge’s offensive game plan varies year to year depending on its personnel. But even last year, the at times pass-happy Raptors found a near 50-50 balance in the playoffs, which they rode to another state tournament appearance and near-quarterfinal upset of Lakeville South.

That’s the type of approach Fritze hopes to establish again this season.

“We want to be a balanced team that can do both,” Fritze said. “In a perfect world, we’d literally be perfectly down the line, 50-50. It depends on the game.”

And conditions. So while East Ridge ran so much Thursday — quarterback Cedric Tomes ran in a pair of scores in his first varsity start — Fritze expects there will be a night this season in which the junior indeed airs it out.

“I think we could open it up a lot more when we don’t get these conditions each week,” Tomes said, “so that’ll be nice.”

But that wasn’t required Thursday. Particularly not when East Ridge’s defense was playing so well. Park’s lone score through three quarters came on defense, when Park junior linebacker Aidan Boche returned an interception 66 yards to the house in the second quarter to put the Wolfpack on the board.

The Wolfpack found more success offensively through the air in the second half, but a number of drives were thwarted by interceptions — two of which came from East Ridge defensive back James Martin.

Tomes said the defense was the “MVP” on Thursday.

“We scored, but they kind of won it for us,” he said, “especially in the second half.”

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