CEDAR FALLS - The Xavier Saints unhappily accepted their state runnerup trophy Friday night after falling to Ankeny, but the hardware was sitting all by itself at the 40-yard line while the Saints met as a group for a final time.

Finally, junior Daniel Vega came over and gave the trophy a light caress, just to get a feel for what their 13-1 record got them this year.

A few minutes later, quarterback Reggie Schulte hoisted the trophy off the ground and displayed it to the thousands of Xavier fans who packed the east side of the UNI-Dome. The fans responded with a nice ovation, but the Saints and their loyal followers left the Dome without the trophy they craved.

Ankeny beat Xavier, 23-17, in the Class 4A finals in a game that could have gone either way.

"I'm just heartbroken right now. I'm in shock," said senior Trey Sampson, who had an interception to keep Ankeny out of the end zone on its first drive of the game.

The Hawks scored their winning touchdown with 3:16 left in the game, erasing a 17-15 deficit.

"So close, but yet so far away," said linebacker Craig Murtha, who was in the middle of another strong defensive effort by the Saints. "Stuff happens like this. You just have to move on with it."

Corbin Woods played another good game for the Saints, but tried to blame himself for not making a sensational catch in the end zone when he was well-covered by an Ankeny defender.

"I should have caught that touchdown pass that went through my hands," he claimed. "That should have been caught and we wouldn't have been in that situation at the end."

The Iowa High School Athletic Association doesn't know how many fans were in the UNI-Dome Friday night, but the place holds 16,000 and there appeared to be about 12,000 fans in the building, split almost evenly between the two sides. Xavier sold approximately 2,500 tickets at the school this week, but that doesn't count anyone who purchased their tickets at the arena Friday night.

Both sets of fans made their feelings known all night.

"It was awesome," Murtha said. "It was fun playing defense with all the noise. You can't hear anything. I loved that part of it."

All the noise played havoc with the offensive units, who couldn't hear themselves think, let alone hear the signals. Both teams were hit with an enormous number of penalties for illegal procedure, with players moving all over the place.

Three times, the Saints were called for illegal procedure on their final possession as they tried frantically to win the game.

"We're not making excuses. Ankeny won fair and square," quarterback Reggie Schulte said. "But my dad (Xavier Coach Duane Schulte) got a letter this week that said if the crowd noise is so loud it affects the line, you can request for them to be quiet and they have to or otherwise it's unsportsmanlike conduct.

"We were trying to talk to the refs about that, but ... It's obviously not the difference in the game."

The difference was that Ankeny scored on its last drive and Xavier did not. If they played again, it might turn out the other way around.