From the first time he stepped on the football field for the MOC-Floyd Valley High School football team, Dylan Maasdam had a role on the team.
As a senior this season, Maasdam, The Journal’s Athlete of the Week, has transformed into one of the most productive running backs — and two-way players — in the state.
“Dylan got some Friday night reps as a freshman for us in some certain packages,” said MOC-Floyd Valley head football coach Grant Hegstad. “At that point, we knew he had a lot of potential. He came back as a sophomore and junior much improved over the year before. But who he’s been through the first five weeks of this season is just different. He’s a totally different player than what we might have expected, but certainly what we’ve hoped for. He’s just been dominant on both sides of the football.”
“I just love the culture around football,” Maasdam said. “I’ve spent most of my life growing up playing with the same friends, and it’s taught us to do hard things in order to accomplish a goal. That carries over into every day life, and the family culture that gets created on a football team is something that’s unique.”
And on top of it, he’s found his voice on the team, too.
“He’s a weight room warrior. He’s the type of kid that’s always been willing to put in whatever work is needed to improve himself and his team,” said Hegstad. “He’s just continued to grow as an athlete and competitor. As a teammate, he’s always been fairly quiet in terms of words, but his work ethic and dedication to his teams have spoke volumes that maybe his mouth didn’t But this year, he’s really grown as a leader for us and captain. He’s been willing to step into more of a vocal leadership role for us, which has been fun to see.”
Through five games this season for the Class 3A No. 6 Dutch (4-1), Maasdam has amassed 882 yards on 104 carries plus 113 receiving yards on 11 receptions with a half-dozen total touchdowns.
“We just want to go 1-0 each week and treat each week like it’s a playoff game where we have to win the game ahead of us and go back to 0-0 to start each week,” he said.
On defense, he has 16 ½ tackles, 15 of which are solo and two for a loss, and two interceptions.
During a huge 14-13 win over Algona to start district play and rebound from the team’s first loss (to Le Mars) the week before, Maasdam tallied 179 yards on the ground with a TD.
“It was crucial,” Hegstad said of the bounce-back win. “Not that you ever desire to lose a game, but I think some of the lessons we took from that game were significant. Just in terms of growing and getting us more ready for district play. In every way, after that loss, we just kind of reset and re-calibrated. I thought we came back with the best week of practice we’ve had in weeks and that carried over into Friday night.”
The loss was humbling for the Dutch, but the Maasdam things the team is better now because of it.
“We realized that we were too high on ourselves and still weren’t the team we should be,” he said. “But we went into (the Algona) game thinking we had nothing to lose. It was a district game, so really every game is a playoff game, because one or two games, especially in district play, can ruin your whole season. So we really wanted to turn it, turn up the physicality and prove to our coaches that we can be better. That’s what we did and played as a team.”
In doing so, he became MOC-Floyd Valley’s all-time career rushing leader. He passed Austin Janssen’s record and now stands at 2,361 yards entering Week 6’s road game against top three-ranked Bishop Heelan.
“It was something I never really thought would happen in my career ever,” Maasdam said of setting the school record. “But it’s something really special to me. I couldn’t have done it without my offensive line blocking in front of me. The O-Lines here have been really great here that past few years.
“It’s really special. If things aren’t going our way we talk it over and evaluate without anybody really yelling at each other. The trust each other a lot. A lot of us have been playing together since like third grade so that trust has been built more and more over the years.
Maasdam, who’s been named first team all-district twice and led the Dutch in rushing for a season that many times as well, is leading Class 3A in offensive yardage (1,018) and in rushing yards.
As a junior, he went for 673 rushing yards on 128 carries with eight rushing touchdowns plus 320 receiving yards on 32 receptions and one receiving touchdown. On defense, he had 22 tackles, (three for loss), three interceptions and 368 kick return yards on 16 returns.
As a sophomore he took 128 carries for 569 yards and three TDs, had 31 receptions for 337 yards and four more scores with 22 ½ tackles on defense and an interception.
His freshman year totaled 56 carries for 237 rushing yards with 12 catches for 84 yards and six total touchdowns.
He’s also 3 for 3 in qualifying for the state track meet.
“He doesn’t miss workouts,” Hegstad said. “He’s a multi-sport athlete and takes track and field very seriously.”
Last spring, Maasdam anchored a top-three 110-meter shuttle hurdle relay team. The group cut almost a full second off their prelim time to run a 58.80-second race to take third in Class 3A with Conner Vander Ploeg, Braylon Van Gelder and Blake Aalbers on the other legs.
The same group took sixth at state in 2024, a season Maasdam also qualified in the 110 high hurdles and long jump.
“I’ve done a lot,” Maasdam said. “I’ve trained at (Bauer’s Elite Training Academy) in Sioux Falls. They’ve really done a lot for me. And I think as a team, we really challenged ourselves this offseason, and I think that’s helped turn us into the team we are today.”
As for college, Maasdam is planning on playing football at the next level, but he’s concentrating on doing as much as he can for the Dutch before turning his attention to choosing his next school.
“I do plan on playing somewhere next year, but I’m planning on playing out this season and seeing what’s out there and finalize a decision then.”
Until then, he’ll enjoy the rest of the season with the Dutch, a team that’s been through adversity on the field and off as the community is still mourning the loss of students who died in a fire last month.
Through it all, the team had found some degree in healing in being a part of the team.
“The week that that happened was really hard for us,” said Maasdam, who had 27 carries, 253 yards and a pair of TDs in a win over Unity after the tragedy. “Players were gone throughout the week. But we knew with trust in God and the team around us, we found strength in being around each other and could use football to sort of work through some of the different emotions we had, and it also gave us a little bit of a distraction from everything where we could just enjoy being a part of the team and focus on football, but we went out and played for (the victims) and got the win for them.”
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