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Indians’ Victory Moves them to the Elite Eight of the State Playoffs

Joslyn Ketzner

The St. Francis Indians hosted the Regional Playoff game against the Victoria Knights on Friday, November 2 on Greene Field. The Indians did not let them get ahead, they did, however, let them score two touchdowns. The Indians collected the Regionals plaque to add to their hardware collection of League Champs, District Champs, and the Yoke Bowl.

“It was a fun game! They were a lot tougher team than we thought,” said Jordan Raby, senior. “Feels good to be regional champs.”

Both teams had successful drives in the first 11 minutes of the game, although they didn’t lead to any points.

The Knights fumbled the ball resulting in an Indian recovery by Brady Dinkel, junior. Dinkel returned it to the Indians’ 25-yard line and later scored the first touchdown, putting them up 6-0.  Senior Cody Baxter completed the touchdown running it in for a two-point conversion.

Raby ran the ball for a 24-yard touchdown. With the two-point conversion, made by Baxter, the Indians added to the score 16-0 in the second quarter, with 10:27 left in the half.

The Knights managed to push through the Indians’ defensive line at the 6:37 mark of the second quarter; however, the Indians’ defense shut them out of the end zone on the two-point attempt.

Recovering from the recent score by the Knights, Junior Brady Dinkel hit Senior Connor Keller on a fly route for a touchdown putting them up 22-6 with 4:53 left in the half.

With 2:43 left in the second quarter, Dinkel capitalized off a bad throw by the Knights resulting in an interception.

The Indians pushed down the field, resulting in a successful carry by Dinkel into the end zone for a touchdown. Baxter added to the score with a two-point conversion, putting the score at 30-6.

That sums up the first half of the ball game, putting the Indians up 30-6. After 30 points were added to the score in the first half, a hard defensive show was put on by both teams, giving the scoreboard a break with 0 points in the third quarter.

However, the Knights found a gap in the boys’ defense leading to an opposer’s score, trying to narrow the Indian lead at 30-12. However, their score was too late in the game to change the resulting victor. The Indians took the victory formation with 13 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, running down the clock and adding a victory to their previous 9-0 record.

“We might have underestimated them a little bit, so they shocked us, but we just kept working and keeping our nose to the grindstone and it ended how we wanted it to.” Dinkel said. “Overall it was a great win.”

As Dinkel said, the ending scoreboard was misleading as to how difficult the win was for the Indians.

Nick Fawcett, head coach, said Victoria was a good matchup.

“I think we got in the mindset of comparing past scores and thought that they might not be as good of a team because of the scoreboard.  But, every week, every team matches up differently with one another, which can make the scores seem misleading at times.” Fawcett said. “At this point in the year every team we will play is a very good team and we can't afford to take anyone lightly.  Credit to Victoria though, they were a well coached, physical team, that played hard and refused to go away, which is similar to what we strive to be as a football team. The good thing is that this win will make us that much stronger moving forward. It had been a while since we were in a slugfest and had to play all four quarters of football.  We will take those lesson learned on Friday night and harp on them in practice this week and get things fixed.”

The Indians will play Hodgeman County in St. Francis on Friday, November 9. Kick-off is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. Hodgman County advanced to the Sectional contest with a 76-48 victory over Spearville.