Needing to win their final regular season game against Williams to ensure a state playoff position, the Joseph City Wildcats came up short Friday night, falling 26-8 to the visiting Vikings. That loss, which dropped them in the rankings, didn’t drop them out of the bracket, though, as they are now the 12th and final team into the Division VI tournament.

Williams scored with 3:15 left in the first period on a Martin Soria to Zack Perkins 10-yard touchdown pass to take the early lead. With both defenses playing well, there wasn’t another score until the final seconds of the first half when Soria scored on a two-yard run, making the halftime score 12-0.

Joseph City got on the board near the three-minute mark of the third period when Hayden Hendricks connected with Koby Smith on a four-yard scoring toss. Hendricks then found Matt Fields for the two-point conversion to make the score 12-8 with the Cats still trailing. Williams added to its lead late in the third period on a 64-yard scoring run by Francisco Ortiz, making the score 18-8.

The Vikings added the final points of the game midway through the fourth period to secure the win and the 10th overall seed in the state tourney, which begins this week.

The Wildcats nearly matched the Vikings in total offense, but just couldn’t put the ball in the end zone, according to Coach Eldon Larsen. “We had a hard time firing out on offense. We were able to get yards, but then something happened anytime we got close to finishing,” he said.

Hendricks finished the night with eight completions on 23 attempts for 42 yards and a touchdown. Bryndon Buckley threw one pass for 16 yards. Fields had four catches for 30 yards. Aaron Johnstun caught two for 21 total yards. Smith had three catches for six yards.

Defensively, the Wildcats were led by Smith with 8.5 tackles. Fields added 7.5, and Johnstun finished with six takedowns.

The Wildcats finished the regular season with an overall record of 5-4. They will travel to face fifth seeded St. David on Saturday, with kickoff set for 6 p.m.

St. David finished the season with just two losses against six wins, although those two losses have been in the past two games against Pima and Valley Union, the two teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in Division VI.