For the second time in three years, coach Wade Winkers and his River Ridge Timberwolves advanced to play in level 3 of the WIAA football playoffs.

With last Friday night’s 21-7 second-round playoff win over visiting Spring Valley, the Timberwolves improved to 10-1 on the season, and became the first football team in school history, including Bloomington and West Grant, to win 10 games in a single season.

As stated by coach Winkers, Friday night’s win over the Cardinals wasn’t exactly a fast-paced thriller, but his team kept pounding away at their opponent and kept their season alive.

“I think we have proven ourselves all year as being a pretty good team,” Winkers said. “It maybe wasn’t our prettiest game, we didn’t win by style points, but we found a way to survive and advance.”

The Timberwolves left no doubt they were ready to play from the opening kickoff last Friday night, and set the tone early as to what kind of game it was going to be.

On their first offensive possession of the game River Ridge marched down field, covering 68 yards in six plays, getting a one-yard touchdown run from senior fullback Noah Copsey.

Spring Valley looked poised to answer on their opening possession, but a fourth-and-goal attempt at the two-yard line was stuffed by River Ridge’s Blake Reynolds and Emery Simerson, throwing their back for a one-yard loss.

River Ridge then went on a 13-play drive that did not result in any points for the Timberwolves, but did take eight minutes off the second-quarter clock.

Each team turned the ball over twice in the final four minutes of the first half, as River Ridge held a 7-0 advantage at the intermission.

Forcing the Cardinals to punt on their first possession of the third quarter, River Ridge took over at their own 21-yard line with 9:50 showing on the clock.

What followed for the Timberwolves was a 15-play drive that used exactly eight minutes and 29 seconds, and was capped off by a four-yard TD run by quarterback Blake Reynolds.

Ironically for the Timberwolves, every play of that drive was a run play to the left side of their line.

“We’ve been a right-handed team for most of the year, but on that long drive we just played to the left,” said coach Winkers. “We had a personnel advantage on that side we thought based on how they were defending us, and we just said we were going to stick with it and those guys stepped up.”

“We weren’t necessarily running behind someone, we were running away from someone,” Winkers explained. “Their best two players were playing on the wide side of the field, which was on the right, so we just kept running to the left, away from those two players that were giving us the most problems.”

“Obviously that third-quarter drive where we chewed up eight minutes or whatever it was, and punched it in, that was nice,” Winkers added. “Emery Simerson and Mason Mezera were on that side and Aaren Bedward is a blocker at halfback on that side, and they did some really good stuff over there.”

With 1:21 to play in the third quarter, River Ridge had extended their lead to 14-0, and then added to that lead midway into the fourth quarter with a six-play, 67-yard scoring drive capped off by a four-yard TD run by Noah Copsey.

Spring Valley managed their only score late in the fourth quarter, but really never threatened again against the stiff defense of River Ridge.

“Defensively we played very well,” said coach Winkers. “We gave up a big drive to start the game, but outside of that we bent a little bit, caused some turnovers and really limited an offense that runs the football and is a problem at times.”

Leading the River Ridge defense with eight tackles each were Cael Koenig and Blake Reynolds, while Preston Gage was in on seven stops. Kameren Reynolds and Aaren Bedward each had interceptions for the Timberwolves, while Emery Simerson came up with a fumble recovery.

For Spring Valley running back Asher Turner, who finished his senior season with 1,432 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns, he was limited to just 74 yards on 17 carries by the Timberwolves, who gave up 122 yards through the air and 93 on the ground.

Offensively for the Timberwolves, they finished with 197 yards rushing and 78 passing, averaging 4.6 yards per play.

“We like to score, score fast and score a lot, and we’ve got the potential to do that, but Spring Valley gave us a lot of looks, a lot of tough looks and different looks,” Winkers explained. “They were constantly adjusting and keeping us on our toes, and it just came down to us going with our bread and butter, which is inside and outside veer.”

“We just ran veer, kept pounding on it and getting our three or four yards, moved the chains and kept the ball out of their hands.”

Rushing for a team-high 93 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries was Noah Copsey, who also had one reception for 12 yards.

Quarterback Blake Reynolds rushed for 68 yards and one score on 19 attempts, while also completing 6-of-12 passing attempts for 78 yards. He was also picked off twice.

Kameren Reynolds had one reception for 37 yards, while Preston Gage and Aaren Bedward each had two catches, Gage for 15 yard and Bedward for 14.

The second-seeded Timberwolves will take to the road this week as they travel north to take on No. 1 seed Cochrane-Fountain City in a division 7 sectional final game this Friday at 7 p.m.