Waukon football team completes first undefeated regular season since the 1950s, clinches home field edge with 56-36 triumph at North Fayette Valley
Despite the Waukon football team’s Friday, October 25 final game of the regular season at North Fayette Valley featuring the already State Play-Off clinched Indians taking on a transitioning TigerHawk team bringing its season to a close, there was still plenty to play for besides the natural rivalry that seems to have developed between the two squads over the last several seasons. The Indians had a chance to gain further play-off advantage with a pending top billing in the final Class 2A State Play-Off seeding process resulting in hosting their first two postseason games and an even more historical motivation of being the first Indian grid squad in the Iowa high school football play-off era to complete an undefeated regular season and the first such season since the grid Tribe played to unblemished marks under Coach Walter “Red” Rixen in both 1953 and 1957.
STATE PLAY-OFFS BEGIN AT HOME THIS FRIDAY
Friday’s win wraps up the first undefeated regular season for the football Indians in the era of Iowa high school play-off football that began in the early 1970s and, thus, also completes the grid Tribe’s second consecutive undefeated Class 2A District 4 championship. That undefeated district championship, along with the highest Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) used to determine play-off qualifiers, locked in the top seed for the football Indians throughout this season’s Class 2A State Play-Offs and guarantees they will play their first-round and quarterfinal play-off games at home.
That State Play-Off run will begin this Friday, November 1 at 7 p.m. when the Indians will host Tipton, the District 5 runner-up with a 4-1 record and 6-3 overall season mark. That lone district loss for the Tigers came this past Friday in their final regular season game by just a 14-13 margin at home to West Liberty, who also completed its season with a 6-3 overall record, 4-1 in District 5 play to win that district championship by virtue of head-to-head competition over Tipton, despite a lone District 5 loss to Mt. Vernon. Further details about the Indians’ first-round opponent and remaining Class 2A State Play-Off possibilities appear elsewhere on the Sports pages in a shaded box in the October 30, 2019 print edition and e-edition of The Standard.
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