With the season on the line, Edina senior kicker Will Gremmels tries to stay relaxed and think about anything but booting the football through the uprights.

In No. 3 seed Edina’s 23-21 Class 6A state quarterfinal win over No. 4 Eden Prairie, that meant thinking about banana pancakes and a conversation he had with senior holder Frank Velner while the pair were kicking this past summer.

“I wasn’t kicking the best, but we’re talking about breakfast, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna try something,’ ” Gremmels said. “I randomly just said ‘banana pancakes’ [before the kick], and I’ve been doing it since.”

Referencing that sweet dish had sweeter results Friday night at Osseo. Eden Prairie (8-3) took its first lead of the night, 21-20, after grinding out an 11-minute scoring drive to start the third quarter. Edina (7-4) had scored 20 points in the first half, largely thanks to the legs of senior running back Chase Bjorgaard, but the Hornets were forced to convert dicey third and fourth downs late to keep the ball in their hands.

On fourth-and-1 with five minutes left, they couldn’t risk finishing the drive empty-handed and handing the ball back to Eden Prairie to burn out the clock. So Gremmels, who also hit a much-needed fourth-quarter field goal in Edina’s overtime win over Forest Lake last week, booted a 29-yarder for the lead.

“Being a senior, especially, I feel like my foot hitting that ball is my season, right?” Gremmels said. “That’s my teammates’ season. I don’t want it to end.”

With a senior class that got a taste of finishing as state runner-up in 2023, Edina is chasing its first football state title. The Hornets will face No. 2 Minnetonka on Thursday in a semifinal at U.S. Bank Stadium. All it took was avenging a 40-19 regular-season loss to fellow Metro West district squad Eden Prairie, a team the Hornets had to beat in that 2023 playoff run, too.

“Our schedule is so tough,” Edina head coach Jason Potts said. “The challenge from a coaching standpoint is to teach all the players to have a growth mindset. … If we can sit with the emotions of the disappointment of losing those games earlier in the year and then just keep it all about the Edina Hornets, and focus on getting better — that’s what you’re seeing.”

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Senior quarterback Mason West (9-for-16 for 89 yards) connected on a 13-yard pass with senior receiver Jabari Strader for West’s 22nd passing touchdown of the season, an especially impressive figure for a quarterback with a path to pro hockey via the Chicago Blackhawks. His quarterback keeper for a first down on fourth-and-7 late was key to setting up Gremmels’ kick.

Bjorgaard scored two rushing touchdowns in the first half, the first from 68 yards out to open the scoring, then from 3 yards. He totaled 190 yards on 24 attempts and has 19 rushing touchdowns this fall.

“Our guards were pulling, they’re making way for me, and I was seeing a lot of green grass, so I just had to make one guy miss, and pretty much should be a big run after that,” said Bjorgaard, who also plays linebacker.

Eden Prairie managed to cover some ground, both on the scoreboard and the turf, via their leading rusher, sophomore Owen Konrad. He set up senior back Andrew Johnson to punch in two close-range touchdowns before halftime, helped by a red zone encroachment penalty on Edina’s defense ahead of each Eagles score.

But Edina’s defense — a swarm of Hornets getting big stops from such players as senior linebackers Evan Gilder and Sam Hoy, senior defensive backs Alex White and Cooper Drake and safety Christian Hayes — stuffed Eden Prairie deep in its own territory and forced a punt after what turned out to be the game-winning field goal.

“I was confident, every play, even fourth-and-long, fourth-and-short there twice,” Bjorgaard said. “I knew that we could get it done.”

“The Bank is open!” Potts hollered after his postgame speech to the team, tossing his hat into the air as his players swarmed him. Said Potts: “We’ve got to be our best at the end.”

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