The Cedar Falls Tigers who played at Kingston Stadium on Wednesday night may have been the toughest  No. 4 seed in the history of the high school football playoffs.

Just ask the Washington Warriors. Fortunately for the Warriors, they survived to talk about it.

Washington rallied for a 28-21 victory over Cedar Falls in the first round of the Class 4A playoffs with some magnificent individual performances and a big-play defense in the second half.

The Warriors entered the playoffs as a No. 1 seed, but they knew Cedar Falls would be a rough opponent in the playoffs. Most games between No. 1 seeds and No. 4 seeds in the opening round are mismatches, but not this one.

Cedar Falls tied for second in its district with Jefferson and Linn-Mar, but the Tigers lost all the tiebreakers and fell all the way to a No. 4 seed when they were actually a district runner-up.

"They're a good team. We knew it coming in," Washington coach Paul James said. "They're more like a 2 seed or 1 seed, they're that good a team. And they were well-prepared."

Cedar Falls led 21-14 in the third quarter and appeared to have the Warriors on the ropes.

"I don't think they should have been a No. 4 seed," said Washington tailback Tavian Patrick, who scored two touchdowns. "They were a tough opponent. We knew they were the best 4 seed out there and we knew this was going to get us ready for our next step on a long journey."

Washington (9-1) will face Jefferson (7-3) in the second round of the playoffs at 8 a.m. Monday at Kingston Stadium in the second game of a doubleheader. Kennedy (10-0) will play North Scott (5-5) in the first game at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Kingston.

Patrick scored on a dazzling 35-yard run in the second quarter when he broke tackles and changed direction a number of times on his way to the end zone. "That was amazing," marveled James.

Patrick made his final cut near the end zone when he ran into traffic.

"All I saw were two guys coming at me and I tried to duck under it," he explained. "Then I hit to the outside and I saw one dude to beat.

"I gave him a stiff-arm and I reached the ball out and tucked it back in. It was just crazy."

Patrick's touchdown gave Washington a 14-7 lead in the second period, but Cedar Falls scored the next two touchdowns for a 21-14 advantage in the third quarter. That's when Isaiah Nimmers went to work, determined that their season was not going to end on a cold, windy night at Kingston.

Nimmers forced a fumble on a punt return and recovered the ball himself, he scored on a terrific 41-yard pass reception to help Washington tie the score at 21-21, he broke loose for a 50-yard punt return and later caught a 24-yard pass to set up the winning touchdown.

The 41-yard touchdown play was a thing of beauty. Nimmers caught a little flip pass from TJ Vogel and took off for the end zone, shedding tacklers and making great cuts along the way. "I wasn't going to stop until I got there," he said.

The long touchdowns by Patrick and Nimmers tied for Play of the Game.

"Those were really awesome individual performances," James said. "They had good blocking, too. You can't overlook that. We had wide receivers blocking."

Trey Leonard made a terrific block to help Nimmers get into the end zone, then Leonard recovered a fumble to set up the winning touchdown for Washington. Johnny Dobbs scored on a 1-yard run to make it 27-21 and Ross Kennedy added his fourth PAT to make it 28-21.

Kennedy missed a 30-yard field goal with 63 seconds left, giving Cedar Falls a final chance, but the Tigers stalled after reaching the Washington 42-yard line.

Cedar Falls ended the season with a 6-4 record.

WASHINGTON 28, CEDAR FALLS 21

.                           CF           CRW

First downs             10               11

Rushes-yards     36-201         34-122

Passing yards         121             248

Comp-att-int     11-23-2        14-33-3

Fumbles-lost           3-3               1-0

Punts                6-39.9          3-38.7

Penalties              5-35             2-25

Cedar Falls     7   7   7 0 - 21

Washington   0 14 14 0 - 28

Scoring plays

CF - Michael Abbas 22 run (David Cook kick)

CRW - Tavian Patrick 9 run (Ross Kennedy kick)

CRW - Patrick 35 run (Kennedy kick)

CF - Luke Loecher 15 pass from Taylen Alexander (Cook kick)

CF - Tra'von Fagan 7 pass from Alexander (Cook kick)

CRW - Isaiah Nimmers 41 pass from TJ Vogel (Kennedy kick)

CRW - Johnny Dobbs 1 run (Kennedy kick)

Individual statistics

Rushing

Cedar Falls - DeGroode 24-138, Clausen 4-28, Abbas 1-22.

Washington - Patrick 11-59, Dobbs 11-34, Vogel 2-11.

Passing

Cedar Falls - Alexander 10-20-2, 114.

Washington - Vogel 14-33-3, 248.

Receiving

Cedar Falls - Fagan 4-61, Abbas 2-38.

Washington - Nimmers 3-78, Dostal 2-68, Herzog 2-36.