St. Mary’s 55, Hillsboro 34

Well, that’s that. The Geek allowed the words “Show-Me Bowl” to slip into this season’s coverage many times, and references to Hillsboro and the state-title game had nothing to do with SMBs that happened in 2007 or that could occur in 2023. Leon Hall had a hell of a good shot to get there this year. But alas, 2022 is yet another date on which each of our 12 schools will become pay-per-view customers spectators of the final skirmish.

Does this mark the end of TGG’s hopeful jingle about a Jefferson County team making it past Thanksgiving? Hillsboro didn’t exactly slip-through the cracks to earn a state quarter-final berth like St. Charles West or Portageville in ’22. HHS more than earned its #1 county ranking, and by defeating the #3 ranked Festus Tigers in consecutive lopsided games, showed that there was a massive crevice between the Hawks and almost every brand in the locale. (Looking at 24 games of evidence, we can now safely say the ’22 Hillsboro Hawks could beat Cole Ruble and the Seckman Jaguars by a “Baylor-TCU” type of score no matter how many yards or TDs Cape Girardeau’s soon-to-be FCS phenom ran for, and we’re not speaking of the relatively tame “Baylor-TCU” game last week.)

Then again, Hillsboro High School faced a perfect storm of bad developments in Saturday’s playoff game, and still managed to tie the scoreboard at 34-34 in the 4th quarter at St. Mary’s. Announcers of shoot-out games say “the last team with the ball will win” but Saturday’s C4 quarterfinal was a genuine momentum game in which the final team to enjoy the momentum was going to win. HHS had momentum to spare after tying the contest 34-34 on Jaxin Patterson’s last TD for the Blue & White. But the Hawks would then be vanquished by a kickoff return off a wind-blown, bounding boot that reminded The Geek of Kanden Bolton’s brilliant play to whip Herculaneum in Week 9. RB Chase Hendricks, who’s about to revive Iowa’s offense by the sake of his name alone (you can’t have a name like “Chase Hendricks” and average 2.5 YPC in an ESPN game, that’s not happening), fielded the broken-field ball on his own 3-yard-line and raced through a fjord-narrow seam to paydirt.

Hillsboro QB Preston Brown was then asked to throw a deep flat-pass out of a Veer-style setup, because Lombardi said that a team’s strengths and fatal flaws tend to remain the same through all the decades. The Gods of Muskegon rained lake-effect snow on Hillsboro’s surprise mix-up of its new tactics, and the Dragons’ resulting pick-6 ended all suspense near the 5-minute mark.

But…and if you think this “but” will come with some regular old sliver-lining patter from TGG (or a frozen bank commercial) then be ready for another surprise…

The Hillsboro Hawks didn’t win and advance on Saturday. But they didn’t lose the game fair and square. Folks always say that “the referees lost control of the game?” In Saturday’s hair-trigger playoff bout, the programs – and MSHSAA – lost control of the referees.

Hillsboro at St. Mary’s was officiated so poorly, and just perhaps so crookedly in the 2nd half that we have no idea how a fair match would’ve gone. That’s not to say the outcome was unfair to the Dragons at all, in fact St. Mary’s turned a motley 1st-half performance around in amazing fashion after having learned dreadful news about their program in the past few weeks. Rank-and-file St. Mary’s blockers and tacklers demonstrated that they’re comparable in skill-set, discipline, and courage to the 10-win Hillsboro Hawks, with or without all those “Chase Hendricks”-es who just happen to be going to U-Iowa and to St. Mary’s prep. St. Mary’s deserved to advance – but they deserved to know if they were the better team on Saturday too. We’ll actually never know.

TGG will try hard to avoid demagoguery, or bringing suspicion onto the many, many wonderful postseason referees who rescue MSHSAA’s officiating efforts from the pits of “Herky vs St. Pius Week 5” every season, and who have already been singled-out (or “sorted out”) for praise on Mississippi Magazine in 2022. (You’ll notice that today’s 2-paragraph intro, curiously known in some coaches’ rooms as “half” of TGG’s 1500+ word prep-football posts, doesn’t say a single word about the zebras.) Hillsboro vs St. Mary’s ’22 was played under an extremely unique set of circumstances that could sway Alan Dershowitz to make local fan-friendly calls. Then again, the referees at St. Mary’s seemed to hold temporary grudges vs the Dragons too. In short, the latter half was a royal mess.

First, the Dragons took a holding penalty on RB John Roberts’ first gallop into the end-zone early in the 3rd quarter. Except they didn’t. In an almost unpreceded move, the referees huddled together after listening to the protests of St. Mary’s players and coaches on the host sideline, and then, shockingly, waved off the flag. St. Mary’s went ahead 21-20, and as even the (quite fair and gentlemanly) home-team announcers pointed out, that wasn’t the end of the “shenanigans.” It was only the start of a very farcical 24:00.

Thus followed a series of holding and tripping calls on St. Mary’s that TGG couldn’t find much evidence for, except that the officials may have been frantically trying to make-up for giving the Dragons points against clear protocol. But when the Hawks forced a safety by sacking David Leonard on the goal-line, another weird huddle produced a downed football on the 1-yard line instead.

Hillsboro couldn’t afford to face any more adversity than what the rejuvenated Dragons dealt the Hawks in the 3rd quarter. Roberts was only 1 swift play-maker compared to the 5+ home-run rushers on the HHS side, but he was sizzling-hot behind a bruising OL, threatening to take over the scrum much like the diminutive West Plains RB Brayden Lidgard frustrated Festus in 2018’s C4D1 championship game. Hillsboro’s defense was tired in the 3rd quarter following St. Mary’s rapid-fire turns, losing the turnover battle with 2 broken-play fumbles just as TGG warned about on Friday. But “taking advantage of field position” would be an understatement on what happened next, and with Leon Hall producing as many quarterback sacks as Roberts & Hendricks could produce touchdowns, HHS clawed back into the driver’s seat.

But if the Hawks were facing only 11 St. Mary’s Dragons at a time, and not 3 referees in addition, that myth was busted early in the 4th quarter. The Geek was waiting for somebody named “Romaine” or “Patterson” to catch a long throw on a “wheel” route like Maxwell Jacob Friedman fans waiting for the brass ring, and sure enough, Brown found Romaine on a 4th quarter toss from the 25 to the 5-yard-line, and Romaine wrestled with a Dragon tackler while advancing his feet until both were over the pylons.

Hillsboro eventually scored on the possession to secure its comeback bid, prior to Hendricks and DB Kaliel Boyd’s knock-out punches in an equally-ragged scenario later on. But it doesn’t matter that the drive was successful, because MSHSAA can’t explain-away what the referees did after Romaine’s “touchdown” catch.

There were no flags. Nobody downed the ball. Nobody blew a whistle, at least not until after Hillsboro was in the end zone. But the referees moved the ball back to the 4-yard line. Then had a discussion. Then they moved it back to the 5. Another discussion. THEN THEY MOVED IT BACK TO THE 20 YARD LINE. ANOTHER DISCUSSION. NO SIGNAL. Hillsboro coaches, players, and fans screaming in disbelief. The referees seemed to answer with platitudes and warnings for the HHS sideline to stay intact. Then – still without a flag or any signal to the crowd at all – with The Gridiron Geek rubbing his eyes – THEY MOVED IT BACK ANOTHER 5 YARDS! NO SIGNALS! 1st down for Hillsboro. On the 25.

WHAT? An official can’t move the ball around without a flag, a signal, a rule, or a reason, whether a potential TD has just been scored or not. If Romaine’s forward progress was stopped on the 4-yard-line, that’s where the 1st down should have been. If not, then he scored a touchdown catch to tie the scrum then and there. “30-yard penalties” that pull a scoring play out of the end zone and transport the egg back to the 25 are common – but not after 6:00 delays and several grab-and-walk episodes with no flag in sight.

Think of the row New Jersey’s athletic association is in because a game-night official moved the ball and the chain a few inches! They should get a load of Saturday’s refs from St. Mary’s, who moved footballs 30 yards at a time without feeling the need to explain.

On Hillsboro’s ensuing “re-run” drive, the St. Mary’s zebras got into a trash-talking fight with Hillsboro supporters by the busy end zone, halting the playoff game once more. That’s catastrophically bad referee work, but it’s also a clue as to why Saturday’s 2nd half turned out so funky. The referees seemed to be indignant that so many noisy Hawks fans had turned out for a virtual “neutral site” game. But they’re not allowed to be St. Mary’s parents or boosters – the referees from Saturday couldn’t even have been “hometown” cheering because St. Mary’s is a private school that clobbers everybody’s hometown team in STL. Why the favoritism?

St. Mary’s school may be closing in 2023, a tale that’s ALL over the prep sports headlines in the Gateway City. That could be our culprit. Heck, if TGG were refereeing a St. Mary’s playoff game in 2022, he wouldn’t want to signal the TD that knocked the Dragons out. MSHSAA seniors toil in the playoffs knowing it could be their last game – EACH of the Varsity Dragons could be facing a final chapter (and basketball shoes) as of the defending champs’ next loss.

If the officials felt too much sympathy for St. Mary’s, though, it’s a product of the same short-sightedness that local media coverage tends to produce. St. Mary’s is not an underdog story. The Dragons could be summarily rejected by every local athletic department (fat chance) next year and they’d still have played more games, won more victories, and earned more titles than most kids dream of. Furthermore, by crisscrossing the Class 4 bracket to include powerhouse Kansas City teams in the Show-Me Bowl semifinals, the “sympathetic” MSHSAA may’ve already doomed St. Mary’s. Smithville will host St. Mary’s in a C4 bout light-years from the Mississippi River this Saturday, and readers know intimately how stiff-legs can crush teams’ chance in the MSHSAA final four, having observed Jefferson blow-away Duchesne and then get Turbo-Clocked in the next game against Lamar in 2020. With irony, any biased STL zebras with sympathy-for-kids on their minds should’ve either favored Hillsboro or called the Q-Final consistently and right down the middle, since if HHS had won, Smithville High would be traveling, and could face its own 50-point drop in effectiveness.

Besides, there are lots of underdog stories this fall that remind us how every program has hope to succeed on a state level. You just have to put down the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and look around a little bit. Cape Girardeau Central is in the Class 5 semifinals after looking like a low-end Class 4 enterprise for 2-3 seasons. Park Hills Central matched Hillsboro’s excellence with a brave, close struggle vs Cardinal Ritter on Saturday. Portageville, incredibly, made it to MSHSAA’s state quarterfinal round and bothered Duchesne for 48:00. Oh, and Center, the “#2” squad we thought might face Hillsboro around Turkey Day? Didn’t score Saturday. At all. Smithville’s surprising shut-out win and lucky draw for Week 14 could vault the Warriors over Webb City as western Missouri’s new Show-Me Bowl bid, unless the sagging St. Mary’s treasury can manufacture the $ to fly the Varsity Dragons to KC this week.

HHS isn’t going away as a gridiron power without Patterson, Romaine, and Alex Medina’s services. It’s true the Hawks will lose a lot of the ’22 team’s explosive big-play ability with the graduating Class of 2023 (not to mention a terrific pass rush) but no team whitewashes its schedule like Leon Hall did without a solid underclass, and consider that there’s only 14 seniors moving on in spring as opposed to Seckman’s 32. Hillsboro’s massive TD rushes will be replaced by time-consuming drives next season, with QB Preston Brown’s threat of play-action always there to keep a defense honest. Shades of “Jefferson 2020” form when you pair solid offensive and D-lines with steady 1st downs and long-bomb opportunities, giving HHS a chance to stand on Jax and Fresh’s shoulders like JHS built on Andrew Graves’ momentum in ’20.

But the Hawks will have competition for headlines in their own backyard. Festus R-6 brings a “Seckman ’22” crew of 30+ seniors to 2023. Herculaneum just earned its first 6-5 season in forever. Crystal City is positioned to be the “Portageville” of next season’s small-school playoffs, and MRAC-rival Windsor could finally come alive. Private schools can close or stay open or do whatever they’re planning to do, but Jefferson County will have a lot better chance to produce state-playoff glory in a year of 4-5 teams – including the Hillsboro Hawks – with chances to advance through November.

It’s a lot harder for a single boat to sail all the way to shore, especially with a perfect storm to contend with. But the fact that Hillsboro ’22 sailed into such uncharted waters as several fantastic county teams sat at home and watched is a sign that the bar has been moved even further at Leon Hall. Farmington can’t hope to ball-control a win against Hillsboro ’23 if the Hawks’ OL proves to be just as good for 15+ plays at a time as it was for 4-5 plays and a touchdown on most of Hillsboro’s drives this season. Windsor WR A.J. Patrick cannot hope to catch-and-run the Hawks into an upset defeat next October – HHS just showed that by producing a bigger variety of TDs than the Mississippi and D1 champion FHS Tigers of 2020. North County can no longer be ranked as a more-effective defensive team than the Blue & White…not after Hillsboro High manufactured 4 INTs vs St. Mary’s and Cardinal Ritter.

Finally, coaches like A.J. Ofodile of Midmeadow Lane can no longer count themselves advantaged in any way over Hillsboro HC Bill Sucharski, whose program has now earned the finest reputation of any large riverside public-school team north of Jackson. Sucharski has transformed the Hawks from a “3-yards-and-dust” team into something a lot more dangerous for District rivals to battle.

This season, it was Hillsboro’s opponents who were straining to gain 3 yards at a time – before turning into big, fat clouds of dust.

Stay tuned for a look-back at Hillsboro’s 10 run-away triumphs and more in Mississippi Magazine’s final Power Poll of 2022.