Edmunds County Tribune -

The lights will be on for at least one more night at the Ipswich football field, when the Tigers, 7-1 during the regular season will host Lemmon/McIntosh (4-4) in a Class 9AA high school football playoff opener on Thursday at 7 p.m. Ipswich comes in as the overall third seed in the state. Hanson is the number one seed and Parkston seeded second.

The Tigers tuned up for the post-season with a Lake Region Conference 54-0 win over visiting North Central in a game that was ended in the third quarter on the 50-point-lead rule. Those last six points were derived by Ipswich's defense when Trevor Beyers earned a 65-yard pass interception touchdown. That win would assure an LRC sweep by the Tigers for the first time since 2009, according to Coach Brian Hogie.

The Tigers would score first vs. North Central, after a NC on-side kick attempt was recovered by Ipswich resulting in excellent field position. Carson Gohl capped that opportunity with his 12-yard run, but the PAT play failed. But it didn't take too long until the Tigers were back in business with Luke Peterson's 39-yard TD carry with an unsuccessful conversion play. Ipswich would squeeze in one more first-quarter TD drive, that was capped by Zach Geditz with a three-yard run. And this PAT play was indeed a success, thanks to Gohl's carry. It put Ipswich up 20-0 after a quarter.

The defense came through with a safety when Ian Beyers tackled a Thunder ball-carrier in the end zone. That put Ipswich ahead 22-0 with North Central's kick resulting in not awfully bad field position. The Tigers were then able to score on a Gohl 34-yard run. Luke Peterson would cap another possession with his six-yard run and Ian Beyers would pass to Carter Geditz for the PATs. Colby Sylte later broke free to paydirt from 42 yards out and Chet Peterson was able to score a two-yard touchdown earlier in the third quarter, setting up that game ending interception TD by Trevor Beyers.

Ipswich racked up 338 rushing yards and were led by guess who, yes Gohl with 107 yards on six carries. Luke Peterson was next with 65 yards on five carries, followed by Sylte at 3-44. The visitors were limited to a net 21 rushing yards, led by Landon Wolf at 8-38. The airwaves were also productive for 65 more yards from Ipswich on Ian Beyers' 4-9-1 evening. His favorite receivers would be Carter Geditz at 1-28, Matthew Jaenisch at 1-20 and Gohl 1-10. (The Thunder had 50 total aerial yards going 8-16-2.)

Ipswich utilized eight first downs and the visiting Thunder, six.

Ipswich's balanced tackling effort was led by Sylte and Grant Weisser with seven tackles apiece and Zach Geditz added five. Colton Mohr and Ashton Hartling each led the visitors with eight tackles, followed by Chance Mehlhaff with five.

The Tigers will indeed host Lemmon/McIntosh on Thursday and the 3-6 Thunder will participate in a Class 9A post-season opener at Wall also on Thursday.