The football field, which was speared by debris, is again lush green, lined with stripes and mowed perfectly. The mangled signs of 205-mile-an-hour chaos are gone, replaced by new bleachers, light towers, goal posts and a short chain-link fence behind which restless men and children watch the games. A new scoreboard stands in a corner. A rumpled metal piece of the old one, proclaiming this to be “Falcon Country,” hangs as a twisted memorial where the players take the field.

“You get beat up, battered, but you get back up off the ground,” Thomas said.

The Falcons, beyond reasonable expectations, are 10-0 and ranked No. 1 in Iowa’s Class 1A, for small schools but not the smallest. There is no high school here, not anymore and not yet, but there is a team. And those who never dreamed of such destruction now imagine a recovery that includes a championship.

Aplington-Parkersburg opened the state playoffs with a 42-0 victory against St. Ansgar on Wednesday night at Ed Thomas Field. As people gathered in the chilled twilight before the game, many stopped at the orange construction fence to look at the school being resurrected. They saw backhoes and dump trucks. They saw a horizon filled with houses and businesses in various states of construction. When asked about May 25, some of them cried.

Then they filled the new bleachers and cheered.

“We’re just happy to help out the town,” said Alex Hornbuckle, a junior running back who scored five touchdowns Wednesday and is one of three 1,000-yard rushers on a team running an old-school wing-T offense. “Whether it’s building houses or playing football, we’re just happy to help,” he said.