Players on the De Soto High School football team set themselves up for some good news on Saturday after an impressive performance on Friday.
The Pirates closed out their regular season with a 44-14 victory over visiting Highland to secure a 5-2 record and third place in the final Ridge and Valley Conference standings.
De Soto’s midseason hope was to get a home playoff game, but that was going to be difficult after a 36-28 overtime loss to Belmont in Week 7. With the new playoff matrix being used by the WIAA, coach Ev Wick wasn’t sure how much of a jump his team could make by closing out with the win over the Cardinals (5-3).
“We moved up six spots,” he said. “We knew we needed some help and had a list of the teams we needed to lose, and quite a few of them did.”
The results gave the Pirates a No. 5 seed for the upcoming 8-player playoff bracket, and they will travel to fourth-seeded Belmont (7-1) for a rematch of that overtime loss two weeks ago.
“We knew there was a chance that we would get them,” Wick said. “That’s what the guys wanted. They want another chance to play them because they know they didn’t play their best the first time.”
De Soto turned a 14-12 halftime deficit into a 28-14 lead heading to the fourth quarter, but the Braves came back and emerged victorious when De Soto quarterback Finn Wrobel was ruled down before reaching the end zone on fourth down during his team’s overtime possession.
Wrobel has completed 33 of 59 passes for 732 yards and 15 touchdowns without an interception. He passed for 132 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 103 yards on six carries in the loss to Belmont.
“We stormed back and took the lead,” Wick said of a 16-point third quarter. “But I think we all of our energy getting the lead back that night.”
The Pirates made their first postseason appearance as an 8-player program in 2022. They opened that tournament with a 56-32 win over Port Edwards before top-seeded Belmont eliminated them 14-12 in the quarterfinal round.
De Soto missed the playoffs the past two years but jumps back in amid an expanded bracket. A field that used to be 16 teams is now 32, and a first-round win this year likely gets a trip to top-seeded Oakfield (8-0) on Oct. 24. The Oaks, who were state semifinalists in 2023, outscored their final four opponents by a combined score of 225-16.
The return to the postseason is a big deal in De Soto, which was a playoff qualifier 27 straight years before missing out the past two.
“All week (leading into the Highland game), we talked about every game from here on is a must win,” Wick said. “Had we lost, we probably still get in but not in a good situation.
“They took that to heart, and there wasn’t a lot of motivation for us to put in front of them.”
The push for a home playoff game necessitated wins the final two weeks, but the Pirates do get to tackle the postseason after performing well against a Highland team that’s also in the playoff field. The Cardinals are seeded seventh and playing at second-seeded Ridge and Valley champ North Crawford (8-0).
“That’s a playoff team that they just hammered,” Wick said. “That helps a lot (moving forward) confidence-wise.”
