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Waukon football team wins second Class 2A State Championship in four years with 28-14 triumph over CL/G-LR

Although history was initially made for the Waukon football program with its first-ever State Championship three years ago, the 2020 Waukon football team was looking to write its own piece of history in its own way when it returned to the Class 2A State Championship game for the second year in a row, looking to record a different fate than its State Runner-Up finish from one year earlier.

Having already added to Waukon football history by making its way to the Class 2A State Semifinals for the fourth consecutive season and to the Class 2A State Championship game for the third time in those same four years, the 2020 grid Tribe finished off its own historical masterpiece with a 28-14 triumph in this year’s Class 2A State Championship game Friday, November 20 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. Entering Friday’s championship tilt with a 9-1 season record, the Indians not only battled through a second consecutive undefeated opponent in the 11-0 Central Lyon/George-Little Rock (CL/G-LR) Lions to win this year’s Class 2A crown, but also had to battle the day-to-day and week-to-week possibility that this season of championship hopes could be brought to an even more abrupt halt by this year’s unprecedented opponent called COVID-19.

“The thing that sets this one apart is everything outside the field this team had to deal with. Constant uncertainty, about having the season, having a game, finishing the season. That is a lot to deal with, on top of playing well,” Waukon football coach Chad Beermann said in looking at the premise of his now two State Championships he has won at the helm of the Waukon football program. “The common thread is kids who played good defense in a relatively simple scheme, and who were physical on offense to allow us to close those title games out. I realize the offense has a lot of bells and whistles, but at the heart of it, both teams had offensive lines and backs and ends who would block, and take pride in it.”

Adding even more to that uncertainty was the injury suffered by three-year starting senior quarterback Creed Welch that took him out of a majority of the Indians’ State Semifinals victory over PCM-Monroe a week earlier and also left him at less than 100% for Friday’s championship game. Fellow senior Sean Cooper aptly stepped in to not only help the Tribe finish off that 38-21 State Semifinals win but also worked in that same quarterback role in Welch’s absence in preparation for Friday’s championship battle, having to also step into that role for a late-game series when Welch tweaked that injury.
“The big thing is always to stay together,” Coach Beermann said about his squad overcoming all those challenges it faced in climbing this year’s Class 2A State Championship mountain. “Accept something will go wrong, so when it does, you can roll with the challenge and move on to the next. The kids came to understand that, and it kept them together when things got tough.”

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