Cardinal Ritter 34, Hillsboro 21

The Gridiron Geek has groaned about Mississippi Conference clubs getting what’s known as a Pyrrhic Victory, in which a team wins in the short-term but loses out in other long-term ways. It happened to Festus High in 2020 when Austin Anderson got hurt on the first snap from scrimmage versus Hillsboro, making the match bittersweet for the Black & Gold even as a rivalry losing-streak ended. It happened to the fans of Missouri’s public school teams when we got excited about Valle U., Cardinal Ritter, and other private campus sports-factories being promoted into Class 3 thru Class 5, only to have local boys put in brackets together like Valle U. and Herky, and (of course) Hillsboro High School vs the St. Mary’s Dragons in 2022.

Last year’s State Quarterfinal against St. Mary’s – the decade’s 2-time Show-Me Bowl kings of Greater St. Louis – showed that the Hillsboro Hawks could play in a Class 4 Show-Me Bowl under head coach Bill Sucharski and not look out-of-place. Saturday, the dynamic and (in The Geek’s humble opinion) still-underrated Hillsboro Hawks played against CLASS 5’s likely state championship team from STL…and absolutely, positively, 100% belonged on the field once again.

It’s the opposite of a Pyrrhic Victory. Hell, it’s not even a moral victory. It’s another notch in Leon Hall’s belt, and a shiver up the spine of any coach or administrator who thinks they can assemble an All-Star team and beat every modest-sized public school by 50 points. Hillsboro just played in a “Class 5 Show-Me Bowl” level game against a Cardinal Ritter roster that’s never going to be in a fair fight against anyone but Helias Catholic, Valle U., or St. Mary’s, and the Hawks looked pretty darn good!

Has there been a scoreboard loss in all of Hillsboro history that worked out as perfect as Saturday’s game at Cardinal Ritter? Maybe the 1986 playoff loss to QB Earl Wheeler and Dexter could qualify, since Bob Harrison’s “IT’S A WILD ONE!” broadcast aired on JCTV got a whole generation of Blue & White kids excited to sign up. But it’s hard to remember another one. Hillsboro erased any idea that the Hawks’ 2023 team isn’t as competitive on a state level as its star-studded 2022 depth chart, and got closer to Cardinal Ritter’s point total than any opponent other than Helias since Ritter began its current 21-game win streak – except of course for the Blue & White’s other impressive 13-point loss to the Varsity Lions about one calendar year ago.

Hillsboro outclassed Cardinal Ritter in the kicking game, making Ritter look like the “rural Class 4 team” with its 2-point conversion attempts (and, most likely, its roster’s bewildered faces after Nick Marchetti’s epic kickoffs). HHS pinned Carson Boyd and the Lions’ hand-picked offense with a 3-and-out to begin the game, then scored the opening TD – not a fluke touchdown on a lateral-and-run down the sideline, but a drive capped off by Payton Brown’s 27th TD of the year.

Boyd was nearly flawless putting the ball in the air, of course, and when the Lions roared for double-digit points in the 2nd quarter, it looked as though a Turbo Clock rout could be on. But like the Grandview Eagles against Jefferson High, HHS went on to put on so much of a fight in the 2nd half that the Hawks’ comeback effort was legitimate against 1st-string players from Cardinal Ritter. Ritter’s coaches would have loved to go ahead by 30+ points and then put the Junior Varsity defense in. But following Preston Brown’s long TD run to make the score 34-14 in the 3rd quarter, the game was on again, and not even Cardinal Ritter’s NCAA-level wide receiving corps could help Class 5’s #1 team leap to another lopsided victory.

The Brown brothers and every other key player – to The Geek’s knowledge – stayed healthy in Week 8. Hillsboro has upped its Class 4 state ranking without even having to beat Class 5, or get somebody hurt trying for those last 2 TDs. PERFECT!

Oh, and yes – we finally got some footage by game’s end thanks to this gentleman’s Twitter/X page. But there’s not even a Box Score on STLToday as of Sunday morning after the bout. What exactly do a couple of teams have to do, win 300 times in a row for the Gateway City media to pay attention? If Week 8 is any clue, they’d better start paying attention to Hillsboro.

St. Genevieve 49, Jefferson 7

The Geek is a little pressed for hours, so let’s get some of Week 8’s most hurtful scores out of the way quickly. There’s plenty of time to talk about Jefferson’s epic Week 8 pratfall in scrolls to come. Dr. Evil and Mini-Me both remain at a proud 7-1.

But meanwhile, has anyone ever heard a radio crew resent a late touchdown as much as Regional Radio after Jefferson’s long pass that foiled St. Genevieve’s shut-out? The J-98 commentary team ripped Jefferson HC Matt Atley up and down for leaving his starters in the game, even though it made 200x more sense than Farmington benching its 1st string while down 21 points to Cape Girardeau. They complained about Kole Williams dropping back to pass in the 4th quarter. After the JHS consolation touchdown, the J-98 color man said, “I’m so tone deaf, I will continue to trash the team that just scored a 50-yard touchdown.” No, really, he said “that’s still a bad decision, blah blah” and sounded a lot like a St. Louis Cardinals announcer who’s trying to pretend to care about what happens to the New York Mets. “I don’t know that I feel safe only being up 6 runs against these jerks – AHEM! – I mean, the Mets shouldn’t want to wear-out their bullpen with St. Louis winning this way. Heh, Heh.”

After that, about half of the HOOME! POOOLS N’ SPAAAS! Home Pools & Spas End Zone Show was dedicated to how Jefferson’s touchdown wasn’t really real, that it was a “Heh, lucky Hail Mary from (insert eye-roll) Jefferson’s first string.” Geez, guys. St. Genevieve knocked off a 7-0 school with an excellent performance. Was that “shut-out” really so precious for the Regional Radio home-team as to hold a grudge vs Jefferson for scoring points in trash time? We have never had 1000 Mississippi Magazine readers yell “GET OVER IT!” at the radio before, but there’s always a first time for everything.

Seckman 28, Oakville 7

Seckman’s win won’t get a big recap either, for we’ve got a hunch that head coach Nick Baer would rather put the scrum behind him and move on. Seckman played what might have been the Jaguars’ worst game on offense all season, managing just 303 yards against the modest Oakville Tigers. SHS had to rely on the defense that got 6 players on our 2023 Jefferson County All-Star Team, which stonewalled the Tigers to less than 100 total yards following a token early touchdown.

But TGG couldn’t help but be floored by Seckman’s TD play that turned Friday’s scrum around, out of one of those patented “1920s” formations that looks very, very 2020s once the swift Jaguars get to the edge and start rolling downhill.

Don’t worry about any late-season jitters getting in the way of 9-0. Seckman’s got a lay-up against Webster Groves in Week 9, followed by a nice bye week to contemplate would could be another David vs Goliath pairing in District Round 2.

Festus 42, Farmington 0

Farmington is beginning to look like some of Fox’s less successful October teams from the past few years, and not because the Black Knights and Warriors run similar playbooks. Farmington showed up to Midmeadow Lane with an injured QB corps and a diddy-bump blocking effort that just wasn’t going to get it done against a defense as physical as the Festus Tigers, looking like a hollow shell of the Farmington offense that scored 38 points against the Jackson Indians earlier this year.

Never fear, the Black & Gold’s shut out of Class 5 – on another home team’s off-weekend “Senior Night” – did more than expose Farmington as a C5 lineup on the rocks. Festus, like Seckman in Week 8, overcame a night of missed blocks and whiffed open WRs to score 42 points on a tough-as-nails defense that fought bravely in the absence of Farmington’s customary TDs. QB Jeremiah Cunningham was nowhere near as accurate as he had been against the Pacific Indians on Homecoming. But a dominant corps of RBs broke so many Knights tackles that it didn’t matter. Star rusher Hayden Bates was unstoppable soon after the 1st quarter, and FHS’s so-called “backup” RB Amyas Edwards turned a Senior Night jam into a gem with a marvelous spinning tackle-break and gallop across midfield on the Tigers’ second scoring drive.

Credit the Tigers winning the line-of-scrimmage – fully, finally, and CONSISTENTLY – for the first time since Coach O arrived in 2020. It’s the first ingredient that you get with a lot of high school coaches’ rebuilding jobs, and it appears to have been the final step in Ofodile’s plan to build a championship Class 4 team. But this year’s elite line play has been worth the wait.

By the way, Regional Radio host Griffin Weinberg was more than fair to the Festus Tigers after their 42-0 victory, even though he’s from Farmington, and, well, working for Regional Radio. The MyMyInfo Twitter/X feed, meanwhile, reneged on a 30-year tradition by NOT reporting any Festus-Farmington scoring plays once R-6 took a 7-0 lead. We suspect that it was just too damn sad to see a team win that’s not “Regional” enough (wink, wink), but there was a legitimately sad story to come.

Webster Groves 21, Northwest 20

Sniff. Sniffle. HONK!

Blame it on the onions. The ones you don’t feel like eating just now.

The Geek doesn’t like how Regional Radio cheers for St. Genevieve and Valle U. on the air. But we’ve got praise for Regional Radio that could help make up for all that this week. Griffin Weinberg’s postgame show captured exactly how SAD, how incredibly SAD it was when the Northwest vs Webster Groves score was finally reported on-air at 10:45 PM.

Northwest scored on an early INT to take a lead on Webster Groves. Later, our 2023 All-Star selection Wes Knuckles scored on a TD pass to give Cedar Hill a 20-14 lead. Heartbreakingly, the “20-14” score stayed on MyMoInfo’s scoreboard – without a “4th Quarter” or “2nd Half” label next to it – for so long that it seemed SURE Northwest had snapped its 2-year losing streak. “20 to 14. That’s final. It’s gotta be the final score by now. Right? RIGHT?”

“I wish I didn’t have to tell you the final score we just got in,” said Weinberg at a quarter-to-11. The Geek knew exactly which score J-98’s host was talking about. Everybody who was following Friday night’s football did. TGG quickly reloaded the MyMoInfo scoreboard and saw the score – that bloody, blasted, miserable score – just as Weinberg reported it.

That was when The Geek…okay, just listen. There were onions in my kitchen. I was cutting them up to make a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich. There was a chemical odor in the air. A gnat got in my eyes! I choked on a glass of Root Beer! I…I…

How could anyone hear “Webster Groves 21, Northwest 20” and not shed tears, at least knowing what Cedar Hill has been through on the gridiron? Unless, of course, you’re from Webster Groves. (Heck, even some of the Kirkwood people at the neutral field had to have cried for Northwest.) It just wasn’t the HAPPY tears that we expected if Cedar Hill had held on.

Northwest will almost certainly win a “Consolation Bowl” game over meek Mehlville in Week 9. Varsity Lions football is on the upswing. Just the fact that WGHS needed 43:00 to score the winning TD is a sign of that. But we were still impressed as hell to hear HC Scott Gerling with his head held high in the postgame interview with Weinberg. The interview was brave of both men, and might have inspired just enough Lions seniors to wipe their eyes clean, and set about snapping that streak on Friday.

St. Vincent 35, Grandview 13

We’ve spent enough blog space questioning Grandview’s Xs and Os this season, so there shouldn’t be any beating around the bush (or the Eagle nest) on last Friday night. Grandview’s amazing effort against St. Vincent, in which the Indians appeared poised to run-up another midgame Turbo Clock lead about 6 or 7 times but just couldn’t get there against the Birds of Prey, is another reminder that Jefferson County football’s critics are all wet in the Year Of Our Lord 2023. Grandview was beaten 5 touchdowns to 2 by a likely Class 1 state championship contender, showing how close GHS really is to succeeding.

The “bad” news for Winchester Avenue is that Week 9’s opposing Chaffee Red Devils are no pushover anymore. We thought Chaffee’s early points-scored against Crystal City were a mark of the Hornets’ inexperience in the trenches in Week 1. But since then, the Red Devils have pitch-forked Hayti and Malden, and produced a good game against the 6-2 Kelly Hawks. Chaffee, at 4-4 on the season, goes into the Grandview game with a superior record for once. But if the 3-5 Eagles can manufacture another win over a team they’ve been perfect vs since 2020, it’ll be a confidence boost for the Q-Finals.

St. Clair 55, Windsor 19

At least the Windsor offense looks lively in defeat. But as compared to Grandview, the Albino Birds are facing a too easy opponent for their own good in Week 9, an angle we’ll get around to later in this week’s coverage.

St. Pius 48, Bayless 8

Hill Valley gets its Get-Well Victory over winless Bayless, but must now prepare for a Get-Busy road trip to Perryville, which took a lot less time polishing-off Herculaneum than the Varsity Lancers did earlier this season.

Perryville 50, Herculaneum 0

When there’s 3 strikes, a team gets knocked out. Herculaneum, unknown to The Geek at press time of the Week 8 Friday Night Predictions, took on the 2023 season’s third wave of disastrous injury before the Perryville bout. Herky’s vaunted Iron Man player Damien Light was hospitalized with a hand infection before the game on Friday, which would have caused TGG to give Herculaneum High an “incomplete” grade for Week 8 in advance, and to not even disrespect the brave Blackcats by “predicting” a final score that was sure to be ugly. It was a Class 4 team with 40+ kids playing against a casualty-ward.

Herky’s head coach Blane Boss, in our opinion, made the first serious mistake of his HHS coaching reign in Regional Radio’s Week 8 postgame show. Boss went dangerously hard on Dunklin’s kids and may have crossed a line, blaming his athletes for Perryville’s blow-out win. Worse yet, the HC appeared to attack his students’ character in a way that only DeSoto’s terrible ex-skipper Chris Johnson has done since we’ve covered Jeff County’s coaches on Mississippi Magazine. Boss, to his credit or to his blame, didn’t spell out his contempt for Herky’s team leadership as plainly as Johnson used to punch down on his DeSoto teenagers. He seemed to be talking through angry clenched teeth on Friday night, FUMING about how “it will take a better group to come in” in order to “understand what we do here” and lift a 3-5 team out of its “losing mentality.”

In essence, “I am only losing this season because these guys think like losers.” That’s what it sounds like Boss really wanted to say, so he shouldn’t have said 6 or 7 other half-arsed versions of it out of both sides of his mouth at once.

Pardon, but in the words of Jimmy Dore, what in the BLEEP is the matter with you? Does the Herky head coach really think it’s fair to rip a roster that’s been ripped apart by injuries, that fought hard to post shorthanded shut-outs and arrive somehow, someway at 3-5 with a potential #4 seed in Class 3, as having lost its games due to a losing mentality? The Geek thinks that trashing your kids’ character on the radio is a losing mentality. Especially when that 3-5 mark is NOT the HHS kids’ fault.

Forget wins and losses. Herky was supposed to be a ghost team this year. Phantoms. No-name JV kids running around in “Blackcats” jerseys and helmets, doing only the bare minimum as I-55 rivals all ran away on the scoreboard. The graduations of 2023 were bad enough. Soon, injuries took away half of the talent that was left over from last season’s winning team. HHS wasn’t supposed to nearly beat Grandview this year. The Blackcats certainly weren’t supposed to stone-wall a Mississippi Conference team like Windsor, weeks before holding a hot Jefferson passing offense to meager points in the 1st half. Herky’s favorable District draw (and this weekend’s classic matchup) gives Herculaneum a lot to look forward to on the gridiron this year, and meanwhile, there’s a huge benefit for 2024 in so many “JV” Blackcats getting tough Iron Man experience in Varsity pigskin. Facing the negatives head-on after a 50 point loss is one thing. Writing your own kids off before the season has finished – after a year’s worth of courage and perseverance – is the mark of a coach who’s let frustration get to them.

Besides, given Herky’s awful (and scary) circumstances on Friday night, it was simply rude for the coach to criticize his teens as towel-throwing leaders who supposedly gave up against Perryville. How would Coach Boss like it if half of his staff moved on from Herky in May, then half of the coaches who were left-over got injured and couldn’t man the sidelines, followed by Boss’ BEST coach and play-caller going to the hospital with a tooth infection, so that he couldn’t even phone-in the plays? Surely, Herculaneum would lose in that scenario. Would it be fair for the Varsity Blackcats to get on the radio afterward, and say “Griffin, it’s just going to take a new group to come in here and turn these losers into a better coaching staff?” No?

Herky’s coach is recruiting for 2024 already, and there’s a lot of football left to go. If Boss is even thinking about this week’s game against Crystal City – as he should be – then Friday night’s fearful postgame talk was maybe a last-ditch attempt to get Herculaneum’s kids to band together in defiance, and “prove the coach wrong” with a rivalry win. But that’s a Marine Corps basic training idea that worked for student-athletes in 1973. It’s 2023 now. At this point, a teenage High School football player isn’t motivated by being blamed for losing only 5 times in a pit of injury purgatory that would make most teams lose 10 times in a row. Boss, all opinion aside, should simply apologize to his lineup (or what’s left of it), and explain that a coach can have a bad interview just like a kid can have a bad night against Perryville. But some HCs are way too proud to do that. We’ll see.

Cape Central 51, DeSoto 21

Ah-Ha! Russ Schmidt’s rebuild begins to pay-off before the 2023 regular season ends, the sign of a truly outstanding coach who doesn’t feel like waiting for that “3 Year Plan.” in Week 8, DeSoto refused a Turbo Clock loss to an elite out-of-conference Large School opponent for the first time since trading TDs with Fort Zumwalt in the early 2010s. Most notable is that the DHS offense is coming alive against top-string players from Class 5 powers like Cape Central, getting RB Ethan Krepps a 90+ yardage day while Colton Fischer snagged a 74-yard pass for a TD.

Friday’s foe Orchard Farm is playing on a Class 2 level in 2023, and could be dinged by the Dragons in Week 9.

Fox 35, Parkway South 16

Arnold nets a pair of “Get-Well” victories going into a suspenseful Senior Night against Ladue.