The Ishpeming High School's Varsity football team played their first round pre-district playoff game on Friday, October 30, 2009 at the Ishpeming Playgrounds against the Norway Knights. These two teams had already met once in the regular season with the Knights coming out with a win on their home field by a score of 23-20. So needless to say the Hematites were looking to make up for that game and had an extra revenge factor going into friday's playoff game. Right from the start Ishpeming came to play, running back the opening kickoff for 70 yards giving the offense a short field to work with. The offense came out and scored on the very first drive of the game. The entire game was extremely hard fought with both teams playing good defense. Ishpeming came up with a big defensive stop when the Knights went for it on a fourth and one with a quarterback sneak up the middle. The Hematites just broke out on a couple more plays than the Knights and took advantage of them when they did. The final score came out to be 34-0 when all was said and done and Ishpeming extended their shutout streak to four games. The Hematites will face the Westwood Patriots in the next game of their playoff run. As with Norway, this will be the second time we have faced them this season. In the first meeting, the Hematites were victorious 28-24. Westwood is Ishpeming's biggest rival, so tensions will be very high, but hopefully we can come out of it with another victory and keep our playoff streak alive.