Arcadia continues slide with BRF loss

The late-season slide by the Arcadia football team continued last Friday and now leaves them in a spot where they desperately need to pull themselves out of their spiral if they want to salvage a potential postseason run.

Black River Falls (4-5, 4-3 Coulee) vaulted themselves into the Division 4 playoff field as the last team in with their 19-18 victory over the Raiders (5-4, 3-4) to close out the regular season in Black River Falls.

Scoring info and stats were not made available at the time of publication.

Coming into the evening, BRF was eight spots behind the postseason cutline in the WIAA projected playoff matrix, though their win over Arcadia was just enough to allow them to earn their first postseason spot since 2019.

The Raiders still are making their third consecutive playoff appearance and their 14th appearance since 2009, but they will rue how sideways things have gotten in October after a sensational start to their year.

Arcadia won five of their first six games heading into a Coulee showdown against Aquinas back on Oct. 2 at Cashen Field, only a for a couple of late turnovers to prove costly in a 34-26 defeat to the Blugolds.

Things have only devolved since then, with a 40-16 clunker against rival G-E-T in the Raiders’ homecoming game and now a road loss to BRF to close out the regular season.

The result: Arcadia missing out on a potential home playoff game and now facing a tougher draw as the program seeks its first postseason win since 2019.

The Raiders are a No. 6 seed in the D5 playoff field and will hit the road to face third-seeded Watertown Luther Prep (6-3) this Friday at 7 p.m.