When Dixie Wooten spoke with Fishers Freight play-by-play announcer Andrew Smith earlier in the week, he made it clear there was no taking the Iowa Barnstormers lightly. They have only one win on the season, but they are a squad with a new coach rebuilding the team with an eye on preparing for the 2027 season. Then the oddsmakers said the Freight were 26.5-point favorites going into Saturday night’s contest at the Fishers Event Center. Turns out the oddsmakers underestimated the outcome.
Hosting Iowa for the second time this season and the third meeting overall, Fishers chased the season sweep and got it, rolling to a 55-13 victory that set a new franchise record for largest margin of victory.
The Freight wasted no time. Josiah King ran in a touchdown on the opening drive, and after a Calum Sutherland kick, Fishers led 7-0. A bad snap and a sack of Iowa quarterback Dante Aviles-Santos handed the ball right back when Tre Smalls recovered the loose ball, and King soon punched in his second score for a 14-0 edge. Iowa answered with a touchdown late in the quarter, but a missed extra point kept it 14-6. Quarterback Felix Harper then kept it himself just before the buzzer to make it 21-6.
Iowa stayed within reach early in the second on a long Aviles-Santos strike to Demonte Martin, trimming the lead to 21-13. From there, the Freight pulled away. A blocked Iowa field goal set up King’s third touchdown of the night for a 28-13 cushion. Sutherland then recovered his own onside kick — a call upheld on review — and Fishers cashed it in when King scored again with 18 seconds left in the half, off a long Harper pass to Coulter, for a 35-13 lead.
The second half belonged entirely to Fishers. Jordan Davis scored twice in the third quarter, the second coming after a Nicholas Lenon interception, pushing the lead to 48-13. In the fourth, Darius Long blocked another Iowa field goal and Jaylin Swan recovered it in the end zone for a touchdown and the final margin of 55-13. The Freight held Iowa scoreless after halftime, and with one minute to go, Harper’s relief — and the offense — knelt the clock out.
The 42-point win broke the franchise record of 41 points, set last season in another win over Iowa to close the year.
The Freight are now 7-6, very much in the hunt for the final two playoff slots in the Indoor Football League Eastern Conference. The final three games of the season are on the road at Green Bay and Quad Cities, with the regular season finale at home against Orlando. It is a challenging schedule to mark the end of the 2026 regular season. If Fishers makes the playoffs, they will have to earn it.