The Spring Lake Park football team really started to believe this could be a special year after it won its homecoming game in September against Armstrong for the first time since last making the state tournament in 2019.

At that point, the Panthers were 6-0 midway through the schedule after back-to-back four-win seasons. They hadn’t had a winning season since 2022.

“We felt disrespected because past years hadn’t gone our way,” senior defensive back Marcus Snyder said. “We had this chip on our shoulder, and it stayed throughout the season.”

A program that hadn’t experienced winning at this level in nearly a decade, Spring Lake Park pulled off the first big upset of the state semifinals Friday with a 39-23 victory at U.S. Bank Stadium over St. Thomas Academy, the No. 1 team in Class 5A since September.

The Panthers (12-0) are going to their first Prep Bowl since finishing runner-up to Elk River in 2016. They won the program’s only state title in Class A in 1991.

Junior quarterback Nolan Roach led the team’s 400-yard day on the ground with 190 rushing yards and two touchdowns, including a 44-yard scoring run to end any Cadets comeback hopes late in the fourth quarter.

“We knew we were better than four wins last year,” Roach said. “That just kept us hungry this offseason and allowed us to come with a different kind of intensity this year.”

Spring Lake Park outscored St. Thomas Academy 27-6 in the second half, including 20-0 in the third quarter.

It was hard not to think about Friday resembling last week’s Lakeville South clobbering of Class 6A No. 1 Maple Grove in the quarterfinals. Few people saw Spring Lake Park’s upset coming.

“We’ve been facing hating comments all year,” said senior running back Lamari Brown, who rushed for 139 yards and two touchdowns. “We’ve proven everybody wrong winning 12 straight games. We’ve gotten this far. There is no looking back and there is no losing.”

After being knocked out of the playoffs two years in a row by Chanhassen, the Cadets (11-1) won’t get the chance to play their rival again this season. Elk River plays Chanhassen in the second 5A semifinal Saturday night, a matchup of the past two state champions (Chanhassen in 2023, Elk River in 2024).

Friday’s momentum changed completely with Snyder’s 24-yard pick-six on Tristan Karl’s pass opening the second half.

After recovering an onside kick, the Panthers then capped off their second drive of the third quarter with a 25-yard rushing TD from E.J. Monluo.

The next backbreaker was delivered by Roach, a 65-yard run late in the third quarter. That drive was finished off by another punishing run from Brown.

In the first half, St. Thomas Academy leading rusher Dominic Baez was stuffed three times inside the Spring Lake Park 10-yard line, which forced the offense to settle for a 21-yard field goal for a 17-12 halftime lead.

Baez actually had more yards on one catch in the first half than he did rushing the entire game, 55-48. Multipurpose senior standout Todd Rogalski had 89 of his 109 rushing yards in the first half and scored on a 36-yard run.

Rogalski scored his second touchdown in the fourth quarter. But after the Cadets got the onside kick, he was pressured into throwing an interception on a halfback pass.

St. Thomas Academy lost three starting linemen to injuries during the game, including senior defensive tackle Magnus Mehlhoff, who was taken off the field on a cart after suffering an apparent head injury with 10½ minutes left in the first quarter.

Cadets coach Travis Walch, who reached the state championship game in 2023, didn’t use injuries as an excuse for his team being outplayed by Spring Lake Park on the biggest stage Friday.

“Good teams pressure you enough to do things you’re not used to,” Walch said. “We were fortunate enough to do that for 11 games this year. Sometimes you just have to say the other team did a really good job.”