WATERLOO - Prairie battled back from a 17-3 halftime deficit to beat Waterloo West, 30-29, in overtime Friday night in the Hawks' regular-season finale at Memorial Stadium.

Prairie (5-4, 4-2) earned the No.10 seed in the playoffs and will play No.7 seed Kennedy (6-3) on Wednesday in a Class 4A first-round game at Kingston Stadium. Kickoff is 8 p.m.

Prairie had a chance to win the game in regulation, scoring on a three-play, 70-yard drive in the fourth quarter to tie the game, 23-23. The PAT kick failed, however, and the game ended up going to overtime.

Kentrel Smith's 10-yard TD pass reception in overtime gave Prairie a 29-23 lead and this tiime Sam Drysdale nailed the PAT kick for a 30-23 lead.

West (4-5, 2-4) got the ball and scored on Alex Young's 1-yard run. Instead of going for the tying PAT kick, the Wahawks went for the win.

There was no hesitation in Lonnie Moore's decision. In fact, it had already been made.

After falling behind, Moore, Waterloo West's head coach knew if his team scored a touchdown he'd go for two and the win.

With a strong offensive line and a potent two-headed running game with running back Lance Dunn and quarterback Young, Moore said it was a no-brainer.

At the snap it appeared a lane for Young to the right was open, unfortunately the snap was low, Young bobbled it and dropped it to the ground. By the time he picked it up, the Hawks had wrapped him up behind the line of scrimmage.

"I have faith in those guys, those guys up front and with Alex and Lance, I'd take that anytime," Moore. "I don't know how many more times in my coaching career I'm going to have that kind of steam so I said we are going to go for it.

"We had already talked about what we were going to do if we scored. There was no hesitation, it was trying to figure out what we wanted to do was the problem.

"It was there, we just didn't get the snap."

With a chance at a winning season and better Class 4A playoff positioning, West came out strong in the first half as a Dunn 26-yard touchdown run and a Nevzad Osmancevic 27-yard field goal gave the Wahawks a 10-0 lead after one quarter.

After Prairie got a 20-yard field goal from Drysdale, Dunn capped off a 79-yard drive over the final 2:21 of the first half to score on an 8-yard run with nine seconds left to half to give West a 17-3 halftime lead.

Dunn finished with 177 yards on 30 carries and he two catches for 72 yards a score. His 177 yards gave him 1,067 for the season to join Young over the 1,000-yard barrier. It is the first time West has had two 1,000-yard rushers in the same season since Glenn Seals and Anthony Thomas did it in 1984.

After forcing West to punt on the opening possession of the third quarter, Prairie's Trey Beckman hit Tristan Beyer with a short pass in the flat that Beyer turned into a 68-yard touchdown on the Hawks' first play of the half and it was 17-10.

"We came out strong, but give credit to Prairie they made some adjustments and we had to make more adjustments ... it was a real chess match out there," Moore said.

Late in the third quarter, Keagan Printer scored on an 8-yard run to tie the game at 17-all.

"In the first half they really handed it to us," Prairie Coach Mike Morrissey said. "That is a credit to their kids.

"For us it was an X's and O's thing, we had to challenge our kids to take ownership and buy into each other. I think the negativity, at least early on in the game and being flat was really frustrating from the coaches standpoint, but the kids responded and that is what you look for and hope for."

West retook the lead when Young made an incredible throw to Dunn while being dragged to the turf well behind the line of scrimmage. So instead of a 9-yard loss, Young got the ball to Dunn who turned tail and scampered 47 yards to pay dirt and West was up 23-17 with 9:46 left in the fourth quarter.

Prairie answered with a quick 3-play, 70-yard drive capped off by a 20-yard Printer run which was set up by a 46-yard Mitchell Christensen run. But the Hawks also missed their PAT.

Christensen led Prairie with 132 yards on 24 carries.

West had a shot late in regulation to win it, reaching the Prairie 24. But a hold on first down was followed by four incomplete passes and the Wahawks turned it over on downs with under a minute to go.

Prairie got to midfield but time expired to force overtime.

The Hawks scored on a third down, 10-yard pass from Beckman to Smith. Drysdale tagged on the extra point.

Young bullied his way into the end zone on a fourth and a couple of inches for West's overtime score.

The Wahawks now will turn their attention to the playoffs as they will be making their second consecutive appearance.

West will opened up with top-ranked Pleasant Valley at Pleasant Valley Wednesday.

"I'm proud of my team, proud of them making the playoffs," Moore said. "We are going to go in and give them our best shot and wanted to make sure we take every game one game at a time. All records are out the window."

PRAIRIE 30, WATERLOO WEST 29 (OT)

CRP     WW
First downs           14          21
Rushes-yards     39-203     57-293
Passing yards       139        108
Comp-Att-Int     6-18-0     9-21-1
Penalties-yards   11-86       5-55
Punts-avg.        3-33.3      3-24.6
Fumbles-lost       0-0          1-0

Prairie                 0  3  14  6  7 - 30
Waterloo West  10  7    0  6  6 - 29

WW - Lance Dunn 26 run (Nevzad Osmancecvic kick)
WW - FG Osmancecvic 27
CRP - FG Sam Drysdale 20
WW - Dunn 8 run (Osmancecvic kick)
CRP - Tristan Beyer 68 pass from Trey Beckman (Drysdale kick)
CRP - Keegan Pinter 9 run (Drysdale kick)
WW - Dunn 47 pass from Alex Young (kick failed)
CRP - Pinter 20 run (kick failed)
CRP - Kentrel Smith 10 pass from Beckman (Drysdale kick)
WW - Alex Young 1 run (run failed)

Individual Statistics

Rushing
CRP - Beckman 8-(-15), Mitchell Christensen 24-132, Jesse Vinzzini 2-5, Keagan Pinter 5-81.
WW - Dunn 30-177, Young 27-116.

Passing
CRP - Beckman 6-18-0-139 yards.
WW - Young 9-21-1-108 yards.

Receiving
CRP - Drayton Zimmerman 1-17, Smith 3-32, Beyer 2-90.
WW - Trey Burt 5-44, Lincoln Conrey 2-2, Dunn 2-72.