That’s why the Chieftains — who entered their season finale Thursday at Bishop Ward knowing, win or lose, there would be no postseason — were so disappointed when they came up one score short in district play for the third straight week in a 14-7 loss to the Cyclones.

Ward (6-3) was in the same boat as Tonganoxie (5-4) — Basehor-Linwood and Piper had secured the district’s playoff invites. But THS football coach Mark Elston knew both teams would battle to the final horn on a wet, muddy and ugly Dorney Field to close the season.

“There’s a lot of pride whenever we’re playing Ward because we know we’re gonna get a hard-fought battle,” Elston said, adding that neither team was going to lay down just because the season was coming to an end.

Tonganoxie jumped ahead of Ward early, when senior wide receiver Justin Jacobs caught a 38-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jeremy Carlisle on the team’s third offensive possession. With 3:45 to go in the first quarter, THS enjoyed a 7-0 lead.

The Chieftains’ seven-point advantage held up or the next 11:30, but Ward dominated time of possession in the second quarter, limiting THS to six plays from scrimmage while eating up 10:24 of clock on two second-quarter scoring drives.

Elston said his players showed maximum effort in the season-ending loss.

“They wanted this one as much as they wanted the first one, or the fifth one or the eighth one,” he said.

Jacobs said being eliminated from the playoffs the week before didn’t erase the team’s desire.

“We definitely wanted it more than we ever have before, especially the seniors, just to finish strong on our last game and make some good memories for the future,” Jacobs said.

Although a mud-plagued gridiron slowed down Tonganoxie’s explosiveness, running around in the mud for a couple hours, senior Jeremie Maus said, provided him with a memorable end to his prep career.

“I was slidin’ a lot,” said Maus, a running back and linebacker. “It made it hard to do a lot of stuff, but it was fun. It was a good last game.”

Elston and his THS staff weren’t as jovial about the conditions. The middle of the field was basically a mud pit with random patches of grass.

The THS offense usually benefits by getting its playmakers out wide of the hash marks but it was a chore just to reach the perimeter with mud swallowing up cleats.

“Our advantage has been speed and quickness and shiftiness, and you just couldn’t do it,” Elston said.

Added Jacobs: “It was hard to make cuts, and hard to get blocks. It was hard to make tackles. Everybody’s wet. It just comes down to the little things, like choppin’ your steps and gettin’ a good base.”

The conditions had Elston changing up his play-calling routine early.

“That’s why we were chucking the ball in the air so much in the first half,” the coach said.

Starting with Jacobs’ TD, Tonganoxie almost abandoned its run game the remainder of the first half. After three-and-outs on their first two possessions (which featured six rushes for nine yards), the Chieftains passed the ball eight times on their final 12 plays of the half. But just three were caught — one apiece by Jacobs, Dylan Scates and Dylan Faulconer — and one was intercepted.

A steady drizzle in the second half brought more problems as the ball got even more slippery.

“It kind of takes us out of our offense,” Elston said, noting the team’s shotgun rushing attack is designed with certain angles and cuts in mind. “We’re not used to being under center.”

THS still ran some shotgun plays in the rain and center Dylan Young executed his snaps well in the elements. However, the drenched ball proved difficult for Carlisle to grip and he threw two interceptions in the fourth quarter, with THS down just seven points.

The sloppy field, however, wasn’t a problem for the THS defense. Ward’s players were having just as much trouble keeping their feet underneath them and the Chieftains’ defense capitalized.

Jeff Sims and Tucker Hollingsworth were in on a number of tackles in the first half. Dane Gonser had a quarterback pressure, a tackle for loss and a fumble recovery. Jacobs, Jason Espeland, Jonas Myers, DJ Lindsay and Ian McClellan also tackled Ward ball carriers in the backfield.

But no one enjoyed the kind of success Maus did. The senior linebacker had three and a half tackles for loss, a fumble recovery and seemed to be chasing down Ward every time the Cyclones ran a play.

With the defense designed to blitz, Maus was ready to make an impact behind the line of scrimmage.

“Someone has to go every play,” Maus said. “Most of the time it was my call, and I just got back there, timed it up.”

When the game ended, Jacobs thought about Tonganoxie’s three district losses by a combined 11 points.

“You just look back to all the little things you could’ve done right and all the little things at practice, and hopefully nobody has any regrets on what they did,” he said.

Jacobs and Maus said they were happy with the effort and heart the THS senior class showed on the field this season.

“We showed a lot of people that we can play,” Maus said.