Cooper and Dennis Receive NSAA Player-of-the-Week Recognition
BISMARKCK, North Dakota – The North Star Athletic Association (NSAA) has announced its fourth edition of the football Players-of-the-Week honors on Monday. Jordan Cooper was selected as the Offensive Player-of-the-Week and Tyler Dennis was selected as the Defensive Player-of-the-Week from winning 42-17 in a non-conference game against Dakota State University.
Junior quarterback, Jordan Cooper (New Caney, TX/New Caney HS) went 22-30 for 362 yards, no interceptions, and had 4 touchdown passes. Cooper also had 48 rushing yards on his own, with scoring one touchdown. "To my boys Kade, Zach, Liam, Logan, Gavin, Sam, Malik, Mike, Seth, Taye, and Javontey, I love y'all and this is our offensive award," Cooper said. "Coach P and Coach Aune, let's keep the train rolling!"
Senior cornerback, Tyler Dennis (Fernley, NV/Carroll College) had two key interceptions for the Warriors with two solo tackles. The first interception came in the first quarter which prevented the Trojans from scoring. Dennis's second interception came at the beginning of the second half that gave the Warriors possession to score on their next drive.
"We had another opportunity to go 1-0 facing a familiar opponent in Dakota State University. We faced adversity early on going down 0-10, but the team as a whole has faced some sort of adversity each week we've played, so this was nothing new to us. Once we got the ball rolling, we knew exactly what we had to do to win the game," Dennis said. "We executed well in all 3 aspects of the game as our offense put up 42 points, defensively we were all over the field and got 4 turnovers, including the two interceptions by myself, as well as special teams being in the right spots! We preach on playing a full 4 quarters of each game and I felt we did exactly that! Now we learn from any mistakes from last week and continue to get better as we move on to Ferris State for another opportunity to go 1-0!"
Head Coach Will Finley's thoughts on both players; "Jordan is seeing the field very well right now. He's a huge part of our success. Tyler played exceptionally well. His interceptions came at critical times in the game!"
The Warriors travel to play NCAA DII Ferris State on Saturday, September 24th for a 2pm start.