The Fishers Freight will play the biggest game in their two-season history Sunday when the Orlando Pirates come to the Fishers Event Center for a 4pm kickoff. The stakes could not be simpler — the winner claims the final playoff spot in the Indoor Football League’s Eastern Conference, and the loser goes home.
Coach Dixie Wooten and his team have had two bye weeks sandwiched around the July 11 win at Quad City to prepare, and the coach told fans at this week’s Coach’s Corner, recorded live at King Jugg Brewery with Freight play-by-play voice Andrew Smith, that his team is ready for the moment.
“We’ve been working hard all year for this,” Wooten said. “Now we’re playing meaningful football at the end of the season. The guys are ready, the coaching staff is ready, the fan base is ready. Everybody’s ready.”
Orlando (9-6) won the first meeting, 60-57, on May 9 in Florida, a game decided on a catch over the wall as the clock hit zero. The Freight (8-7) can even the season series Sunday, and with the strength-of-schedule tiebreaker in their favor, a win puts Fishers in the postseason.
“They got away with one against us when we went to their field,” Wooten said. “Now they come play us, and it’s going to be a different story.”
The Pirates bring one of the league’s most dangerous offenses, led by rookie quarterback Paxton DeLaurent, who has completed 71 percent of his passes, and Pooka Williams, the IFL’s leading rusher.
“A guy like him, you can’t stop him,” Wooten said of DeLaurent. “We just want to contain him, make sure we hit him a little bit, and make him see some different things.”
The Freight counter with a league-best running game behind an offensive line featuring Devon Donaldson — plucked from the very team Fishers faces Sunday — along with Winston Sharpe, Cordell Brewster and Jeremiah Rogers. A defense that struggled early in the season has held opponents mostly in the 30s since Wooten simplified the scheme and added personnel at midseason. And kicker Calum Sutherland leads a special teams unit that produced more than 20 points in the Quad City win. “In my eyes, he should be Special Teams Player of the Year,” Wooten said.
Two defensive standouts joined the show as well. Defensive back Jaiden Roe, who had an interception and a team-high nine tackles in the first Orlando game, can’t wait for Sunday.
“You wouldn’t want it any other way as a football player — for it to come down to the last game with your destiny in your own hands,” Roe said. “This is what you lace your cleats up for. If we could play tomorrow, I’d want to.”
Defensive lineman Jaylin Swan, a first-team All-IFL selection last season, pointed to the value of playing at home, where the Freight faithful have been loud all year.
“Some of us have never been in the playoffs before, so having the opportunity to play in the playoffs is amazing,” Swan said. “But to have a home advantage to get in is unreal to think about.”
Wooten closed with a message for the fans: “Sunday’s going to be fun. If you have nothing to do at 4 o’clock Sunday, come to the game, because you’re going to see a great game. I promise you that.”
Fans are encouraged to come early and bring school supplies for the backpack drive benefiting kids throughout Central Indiana, beginning at 2:30. Tickets are available at this link.