The Grand Meadow football team finally got over the hump and won its first state title in school history when it beat Underwood 28-6 in the Class ‘nine-man’ Prep Bowl in Minneapolis Friday.

To truly understand what the Superlarks have done on the football field, you have to look a little further than the fact that they won a lot of games this year.

Grand Meadow may have been the best team in the state, but you couldn’t always tell that by looking at its scores and that is not a knock on the Larks. GM made a habit of taking out its starters in blowouts this season which led to the team averaging 39 points per game and only breaking the 50-point mark three times.

GM certainly did not score as much this seasons as some of the opponents did. Mountain Lake averaged 57 points per game during the regular season and GM held it to just 18 points in a state quarterfinal victory.

What the Larks did this season is show respect to their opponents during the regular season and postseason, no matter who that opponent happened to be.

The team rarely let its starters play after a game had been locked up in the second half and it rarely did anything remotely cheap when it was playing in a close game. I watched GM’s last four games from the sideline and I never saw a player or coach lose his cool and I never saw any unnecessary hits.

Granted all four games were big wins for the Larks, but it’s still impressive with how the team handled itself on week-to-week basis. Discipline like that doesn’t always come naturally with high school kids, so its great to see a team that plays with such class and respect.

GM head coach Gary Sloan deserved win No. 150 and his team deserved to win a state title this year. It was nice to see it happen.

The Larks graduate just three seniors and they may be in the hunt for another title next season, but you never know what will happen in a year’s time. I just hope their classy play may have rubbed off on some of their opponents for the years to come.