With two of the more prolific offenses going at it, the winner was probably going to be the one that had the ball last.

For much of the the first round 8-Man playoff game between Ankeny Christian Academy and Tri-County, that was the case.

The lead changed hands four times in the first half, but the Trojan defense contained the ninth-ranked Eagles to one touchdown in the final 17 minutes to come away with a wild 64-43 victory Monday night.

The win sends the fourth-ranked Trojans (11-0) into Friday night’s quarterfinal at No. 1 ranked Lenox. The 11-0 Tigers posted a 40-23 victory over Grandview Park Baptist. Ankeny Christian Academy ends the season at 9-2.

It will be the fourth straight year the teams have met in the playoffs with Lenox winning the last two meetings.

In Monday night’s battle, the teams went up-and-down the field with relative ease as they combined for 870 yards of offense, scoring quite often.

Colt Brumbaugh racked up 275 yards on the ground on 36 carries and got the scoring barrage going hardly 3 minutes into the game on a 45-yard scamper as Andy Thomas ran in the 2-point conversion.

But the Eagles came right back as Tim Olejniczak connected with Andy Harmsen on a 37-yard TD pass barely more than a minute later to trail 8-7 after the first quarter.

The teams traded touchdowns in the second quarter as Brumbaugh’s 20-yard gallop with 4:01 left put the Trojans ahead 22-21 and appeared ready to take that lead into intermission.

But the Eagles had a different take on that as Isaac Lopez booted a 31-yard field goal at the halftime buzzer for a 24-22 advantage.

Ankeny Christian Academy put a shock to the crowd as Lopez picked up a Trojan punt, bobbled it for a moment, than raced 44 yards for the touchdown. He added the PAT and the Eagles led 31-22 with 10:23 to go in the third quarter.

Tri-County coach Scott Edmundson knew the Eagles could move the ball, averagng more than 400 yards of offense coming into the game. He just wanted his team not to make mistakes so it could keep pace woth the explosive Eagles.

“We knew they could move the ball, it was just a matter if we were not going to make mistakes,” he said. “We made some mistakes by putting the ball on the ground and did some things that hurt us.

“We made some big plays on defense that got the ball back and that was what we needed to do, not give them the opportunity to have the ball. We felt confident if we had the ball, we could put points on the board. The defense stepped up, made some nice plays. The secondary made some plays we weren’t getting in the first quarter.”

Like picking off a pair of Olejniczak passes amd converting them into scores.