Photo Courtesy of Jeff Yoder
The only football game in Southeast Iowa on Thursday took place in Wayland with a highly anticipated eight player quarterfinal bout between WACO and Audubon. With all eyes focused on Roth Field, the top six matchup lived up to the hype with the back and forth affair being decided in the closing minutes and the road Wheelers escaped town with a 34-30 victory.
As heard on KCII, the opportunistic Warrior defense got started early when Taylor Sutton forced an Audubon fumble in the first that set up a 38 yard Simeon Reichenbach field goal. A run heavy Wheeler offense could only find success through the air in the first half and Gavin Smith connected on a 66 yard touchdown reception to Carter Andreason to take the lead. After starting quarterback Isaac Oswald went down with an injury, the Warrior offense did not miss a beat by following with back to back time consuming drives. Jon Rice punched it in from nine yards out and Reichenbach had a 49 yard house call where the junior refused to go down and broke numerous tackles along the way. A late Audubon score in the second resulted in a 16-14 WACO advantage at intermission.
All of the momentum out of break swung to the Wheelers’ favor when they quickly scored twice and opened up a 28-16 lead. With the season on the line, the Warriors were successful on three fourth downs in the ensuing drive that ended in a Rice touchdown. With seven minutes to go, Reichenbach found pay dirt for the second time on a 34 yard rush to take a 30-28 lead. The back breaker came with two minutes left when a Reichenbach punt was fielded by Braden Wessel and the senior took it 70 yards to the house. The final chance for WACO resulted in a desperation heave that was picked off and the season came to a close.
Head Coach Chad Edeker had a lot of praise for his seniors. “We had eight seniors that meant the world to me. Some of them never left the field and they put their heart and soul into this season. It was a great year. I had fun everyday at practice and they were a great group to work with. They played their hearts out and we put ourselves in a position tonight, but just couldn’t quite finish it.”
WACO amassed 306 yards of total offense compared to Audubon’s 291. Reichenbach toted the rock 28 times for 158 yards while completing five of nine through the air for 31. Rice had 11 carries for 37 yards and the two scores. Zach Schmitz and Jonah Clark led the defense with five tackles apiece. Smith finished with 229 total yards and two touchdowns for the Wheelers.
Audubon improves to 10-1 and will battle CAM, Anita (11-0) at the Dome on Wednesday. WACO concludes the season 10-1, a seven win improvement from 2020, and their first quarterfinal berth since 2010. They say goodbye to eight seniors in Rice, Clark, Schmitz, Tyler Sutton, Taylor Sutton, Vincent Jones, Bryce Ackerman, and Tim Willits.