The Norwalk Warriors get their mulligan tonight, heading back to Glenwood for a Class 4A football first round playoff game at 7:00 p.m.

The same two teams met on the same field last Friday night to close out the regular season. The Rams pulled away in the fourth quarter to win 53-35, improving to 7-2 and finishing with the No. 3 RPI ranking in 4A. Norwalk dropped to 5-4 and thought their season was over. On the bus ride home, the Warriors learned that they had earned an at-large playoff berth with the No. 14 RPI seed. On Saturday morning, they found out they were going back to Glenwood.

Norwalk coach Paul Patterson has experienced several playoff rematches during his long career, but this is the first time for a one-week turnaround. At the request of the players, Patterson says that this week’s practice intensity was ramped up Tuesday and Wednesday from a competition and pressure standpoint, becoming more game-like. 

When the playoffs kick off for real tonight, Patterson says the Warriors must slow down Glenwood’s rushing attack, limit big plays and finish the kind of drives that stalled out a week ago. But the biggest potential difference-maker, he says, is having the team solely focused on the next play for 48 minutes.

“The number one goal for us is to make sure that we come out and we focus on the very next play, and execute,” Patterson said. “Anything else is going to be something that’s a distraction for us. I feel like Friday night when we played them, that fourth quarter became, ‘It’s over,’ and they could see the finality of things. Can we avoid that this time around? Can we focus on what’s in front and can we make each play its own little game as far as did we win or lose that? We really want to focus on what’s happening right now as opposed to what the score is or what’s going to happen once that final whistle goes.”

Norwalk quarterback Aidan Harder passed for 427 yards and four touchdowns in defeat last Friday, including 12 completions for 162 yards and two scores to Keilor Rodman. The Warriors led 7-0 and 14-7 in the first quarter, but fell behind by 17 points early in the third and turned the ball over three times in the fourth. Glenwood racked up 375 rushing yards, led by Kellan Scott’s 219 yards and three TDs – much of that coming on direct snaps.

Tonight’s game will be streamed live on kniakrls.com (KNIA3), with pregame starting at 6:30. The winner will face either Bondurant-Farrar or Pella next Friday night.