Belle Plaine football coach Justin Johnston remembers his stepdaughter talking about it after school when she was in fifth grade. The seniors on Johnston's 2015 team were then sixth-graders.
"She'd always tell me that she'd see them playing catch all the time and talking," Johnston said. "This was a football-first group. Always has been. And they were always telling my stepdaughter that they were going to go to state when they were seniors."
Quarterback Luke Narveson remembers it a little differently.
"Oh, I think we were saying that for as long as we've played football together, probably before then," he said with a laugh. "We've talked about senior year and going to state and maybe winning a state championship for a really long time."
Six, seven, or eight years later, depending on whose timeline you follow — the Tigers won Class 3A, Section 2 and reached the school's first state tournament since 1993.
"They've put in a lot of hard work, they have a lot of talent, and we're so happy for them to see it all pay off," Johnston said.
Belle Plaine (9-2) has 24 seniors on its 48-player roster, and had returned 12 starters (seven on defense, five on offense) from its 2014 team.
There were high expectations this fall, Johnston said, both from coaches and players. And a lot of that stemmed from having Narveson under center for his fourth year as starting quarterback for the Tigers.