VERMILLION — This football season meant something more to Wall’s Younger Amiotte.

The 6-foot-1, 200-pound tight end/linebacker played his first full season of football in his career, and he did it as a senior winning the 2025 Class 9A state championship with the Wall Eagles.

“We talk about it every year and now the fact that we just easily won feels amazing,” Amiotte said. “We put in all this work and it just feels justified now that we got it done.”

Amiotte has dealt with three major injuries that have cut his past football seasons short. He tore his ACL as a seventh grader, missing action for a full year. 

His freshman season, Amiotte had a defect in his right knee that restricted blood flow, missing another eight months after getting 12 holes drilled into his knee cap.

And most recently, Amiotte broke his foot in three different places as a junior. While he was able to make it back for playoffs, the Eagles fell short of the dome, losing to Wolsey-Wessington in semifinals.

Amiotte was determined to have a healthy senior year, which worked out well for the 2025 Western Great Plains Conference defensive MVP.

“I’ve played 16 games my whole high school career and then coming into this season and being untouched and not hurt, it just feels amazing,” Amiotte said. “I’ve put in so much work in the off-season trying to stay healthy. Me and my coach actually talked that this is the best year for me ever because I didn’t get hurt.”

And Amiotte played a crucial role in Wall’s 60-6 win over Howard in Friday’s Class 9A state championship game. Amiotte recorded six tackles (4.5 tackles for loss), two sacks and one forced fumble. He also caught a 27-yard touchdown in the win.

Wall's Younger Amiotte (11) celebrates a sack against Howard during the Class 9A state championship game on Friday at the DakotaDome in Vermillion. (Matt Gade / 605 Sports)

“I’m the middle (linebacker), I’m kind of our hype guy, I love defense,” Amiotte said. “Everybody that’s on the defense digs defense. You don’t win games without defense and we showed that here. They weren’t going to get in the end zone unless we messed up, which we did one time.

“In the dome, it’s special. We could’ve beat teams by a lot more but we put our 2’s in to help them for next year, hopefully they can make it back. Beating them by this margin is just unheard of so I feel like it’s huge, it’s amazing.”

Wall head coach Lex Heathershaw noted how important Amiotte has been to the defense this season, and a starting defense that only surrendered three touchdowns all year.

“He’s probably one of our main leaders, he’s a captain for us, and does a phenomenal job,” Heathershaw said. “He keeps those guys rolling, keeps them moving. Hats off to Younger and what he’s been able to do.

“He had a pretty tough go when he was younger than he is now and had some injuries. Tore his ACL as a seventh grader, climbed back from that, and you saw what he did today defensively for us and led that unit to a great defensive job.”

And with all of the adversity Amiotte went through in his high school career, it makes the state championship that much sweeter.

“Being able to play a full season with the adversity I’ve went through, it just feels amazing,” Amiotte said. “Me and my mom always joke about it, my coaches always joke about it, and I know that even if I were to go out that my teammates had my back.”