When the Pierre Governors started their state championship streak, Lincoln Kienholz wasn’t playing football.
In fact, if it wasn’t for a little convincing after their 24-21 2017 Class 11AA State Championship over Harrisburg, we may have never seen the Washington commit at the helm for the Govs.
“I still remember having conversations with mom, telling them “Hey you know he’s going to be a pretty good quarterback,” said Coach Steve Steele. “He’s got all these different tools he could do and they were hesitant to let him be back there and let him get hit, you know be in that high stress position.
Obviously, they allowed him to do that and he really flourished.“
The Govs would win two more titles in 2018 and 2019 before Kienholz took over as the starting quarterback for South Dakota’s newest dynasty.
“The keys were his his second year and middle of his first year, as a sophomore, you really saw the game slow down for him and the mental side start clicking for him, and since then it’s just gotten better and better. I think know, he could do just a good as job as anyone calling the offense, just cause he know what we are trying to accomplish.“
Kienholz has been a threat in the air and the ground, throwing for 2,132 yards and 30 touchdowns, and rushing for 777 yards and 6 scores. But there is no great quarterback without a great line, and Gavin Stotts may best represent the kind of unselfish leadership that the Govs.
“He’s got a bunch of tackles but he’s a quiet guy, he’s a special kind of crazy, in doing anything and everything and refusing to get tired. Refusing to be outworked, and he doesn’t know how to stop.
We had an injury on the offensive line, week 8 against Tea, and we asked him to learn offensive line and he ended up starting for us this last week. And it’s just not any easy thing, especially against Yankton, that’s a great team. They ran a bunch of plays on offense, we ran a bunch of plays on offense and he was out there for everyone of them.“
That type of player is what has made this Govs run so special, and it’s a message that Coach Steele has preached daily during their run.
“I just think the biggest thing is that the kids have to care about each other or they can’t play for us. Those are the two things we talk about, is being family and what have you done for others that hasn’t been required.
Obviously doing your job is one thing, but what have you done that wasn’t part of your job to help out a teammate and what do they do for you that they didn’t have to do. I think that mentality really went into a lot of our players, and if you have enough people continually trying to make everyone’s life better, life drastically improves.“
But while Pierre is well known for their dominance during this run, it hasn’t come without trials. During last year’s state champion against Tea, the Govs fell down 21-0 early, before staging a comeback for the ages.
And this season, Pierre made the trip to Brandon Valley, trailing 14-0 after just two possessions into the matchup. Again, the Govs made a comeback.
So how do the Governors continue to win, even when the cards are stacked against them?
“We say turn off the dark, you know, especially today, you can always find something to be negative about, it’s a very easy thing to do, and you can dwell on it or you can find ways to be positive and turn off those thoughts.
I would attribute a lot of a couple really good comebacks during this run to that mentality of don’t dwell on the negative, find a way to uplift your teammates, and uplift yourself, and just find something to be positive about.”
Now, the Govs will prepare for a rematch with the Tea Area Titans.
The last two matchups between the teams have been won by the Govs on a last second play, and many are excited for a third matchup between the teams, including Coach Steele.
“I think it’ll be another incredible game, it’ll be a lot of fun. They are a really good football team, they’ve got a lot of really good players, they are extremely well coached, they are disciplined.
That’s what you want, that’s everything you can be excited about, getting to play or coach in a state championship football game. So we expect this to be a battle and expect it to be a grind.”
