GRAND MEADOW — The Grand Meadow football team will have to get past another familiar foe if it wants to close the deal and win its fourth straight Class Nine Man State championship in its fifth straight Prep Bowl appearance.

The Superlarks will take on a pass happy team Cleveland-Immanuel Lutheran to kick off the Prep Bowl in US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis 10 a.m. Friday.

GM (13-0 overall) beat the Clippers (13-0 overall) 52-14 in the state quarterfinals last season, but Cleveland has a lot more experience this time around. Carter Copet, the Clippers junior quarterback, has shattered the state career TD pass record with 128 scoring tosses and he’s also capable of making big plays with his feet.

“He’s our biggest concern. One thing that really impresses me about him is he’s so good in the pocket and he’s so good at running the ball when pressure is coming,” GM head coach Gary Sloan said. “Against Cromwell, he had numerous times where it was third and short or fourth and short and he would pull the ball down and get a first down.”

The Superlarks are going to rush Copet, but they don’t want to over pursue and give up the big play. Kyle Oehlke, Connor King and Blake Benson will all be asked to provide a big push up front, and Christophor Bain and Zach Myhre will also likely be coming on blitzes.

“We have to do a good job of rushing him, but we have to do a good job of how we rush him,” Sloan said. “Our defensive backs cannot drop coverage, because then you end up giving up a fifty yard pass instead of a five yard run.”

Offensively, the Larks will have to be patient as Cleveland likes to line up a lot of players near the line of scrimmage. Sloan said if the Larks keep grinding, they should be able to turn some big plays.

As far as preparation goes, Sloan said he’s not worried about his squad coming in overconfident. Despite the fact that they’ve won 49 straight games, the Larks aren’t going to be happy if that streak doesn’t reach 50.

Grand Meadow is coming into the title game off a 35-0 win over Waubun and Cleveland beat Cromwell-Wright 38-29.

“I didn’t see a lot of celebrating from our guys after last week,” Sloan said. “The goal wasn’t to win that game, the goal is to win this game. These seniors are a pretty motivated group and that’s been their goal all year to keep the streak alive and win the championship.”

Bain is one career touchdown from tying the GM school record of Landon Jacobson. Jacobson, who is now at Winona State University, finished with 96 career TDs and Bain currently has 95 TDs.