Hillsboro 48, Pacific 35

Forget the score. Forget the Pacific Indians’ scary comeback. If Hillsboro won its Q-Final game 1-0, then that’s a better outcome than the team’s last 2 tries against Ladue High and St. Mary’s Prep, and by a margin of a billion-to-zero. The 2023 Hillsboro Hawks are Jefferson County’s best Class 4 team ever, and may have surpassed anything that Highway A’s pride and joy have ever done on the field in any era. Heck, even our “asterisk” on all that is out of respect for Hawk football teams of a distant past.

The Geek would have to go back on his word to talk about Hillsboro’s quarterfinal win as anything but a triumph for local pigskin. When the Blue & White’s first shining hour against Class 6 came in the early 2020s, we said it didn’t matter if the Northwest Lions had Pop Warner kids blocking and tackling the HHS Hawks – it was history made all the same. Hillsboro’s greater strides to follow have included 4 combined Mississippi league + District championships in a row, and a win streak over fellow public schools that also makes it taboo to talk about how a few private-schools and assembled “county-wide” rosters have the championship brackets strafed-out these days. All one can do is defeat the teams placed in front of them. In their own category, the Hillsboro Hawks beat everybody.

Hillsboro beat Pacific pretty soundly too, despite HONK! some rather BEEEEP! unsporting and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO INDIANNNNNNNSSSSSS-UHH! edgy home-team fanfare that The Geek had already told everyone would NOT show up in the 2023 state playoffs. Pacific ignored any MSHSAA postseason rules that are on the books (when The Geek announced a playoff home-game once, MSHSAA didn’t even allow the school’s fight song, but following Friday’s insane vibe on the Meramec we aren’t so sure that things haven’t changed) and acted like PHS was hosting a conference scrum in late September.

It wasn’t the roaring-yet-respectful vibe of Hillsboro vs Festus from Week 12. Pacific’s people were all still NICE as the devil, of course, but they seemed to ignore the latent possibility that Hillsboro could choose to forfeit Pacific’s entire Elite Eight run for them if Highway A wasn’t so NICE in its own right. Pacific’s most egregious sin was blasting a genuine Diesel truck’s horn at the Varsity Hawks as they lined up to snap the ball. The Indians even used a Clown-Car honk trying to rattle HHS’s defense on Pacific’s turns.

In fact, if Robert Downey Jr. has become a Pacific Indians sports booster in his old age, that totally explains what Hillsboro QB Preston Brown had to suffer on Friday.

TGG’s Friday watch party immediately got into an intense discussion. If Pacific High can essentially “cheat” by treating the State Q-Final like a drag race when they’re supposed to be cheering, booing, saying the names of the rushers and the tacklers and THAT’S ALL, then why did Hillsboro feel so compelled to follow MSHSAA rules while PHS doesn’t, and how can MSHSAA stop it? We decided that it’s a blind spot in the rules because you can’t actually start forfeiting schools over showing a home-team bias in a playoff game. There would be a deafening uproar, and the home-team supporters would arrive for kickoffs on pins-and-needles, afraid to do anything that would cause a forfeit. What we believe the Missouri association can and SHOULD do is compel teams to KNOCK IT OFF with the sirens, Diesel horns, and songs that blasted Hillsboro and CCHS’s QBs over the ball on Friday. What happens if you blast that horn or that heavy-metal jam between plays, or (especially) during the play? 15-yard penalty on the host. That would nip it in a hurry.

In the end, thanks to Hillsboro’s quality and the Varsity Hawks’ perseverance, Pacific’s “noise pollution” strategy would wind up just going to show how less experienced PHS’s program was at the whole State Quarterfinals thing. Someone in the Pacific pep squad apparently forgot that Clown-Car squeaks are on the soundtrack for NFL Films “Football Follies,” and their non-verbal meaning is that an offense failed miserably. They could’ve utilized it after failed Hillsboro possessions instead, as in, to make fun of the Hawks, but Pacific’s kids are too nice to do that! So, they probably just shouldn’t have been messing around with any WWE heel tactics to begin with. Pacific, thanks to its overzealous student section, was accidentally teased with Football Follies each time HHS stopped the Indians. (The truck horn turned HHS first downs into Brett Hull goals, which made no sense for PHS either.) We still love the Pacific sports crowd – it just needed one good usher.

Leon Hall pulled off a solid double-whammy on the field while stitching Hillsboro High into MSHSAA’s Final Four history. When the rowdy Indians began poking the bean out from Hillsboro’s rushers and evening-out a turnover battle which favored HHS in the opening frame, Hillsboro rejected Pacific’s comeback bid in much the same way the St. Mary’s Dragons (and zebras) shrugged off the Hawks’ comeback attempt in last year’s Class 4 quarterfinals, and finally got that steamroller of a running game going behind senior Payton Brown in the scrum’s final 24:00. WR/DB Chase Sucharski highlighted the Hawks’ dangerous Iron Man capability with a Pick-Six touchdown in Quarter 1, with nobody realizing just how important the Hawks’ early insurance TDs would turn out to be.

Preston Brown’s offense clearly isn’t going anywhere, but the Hillsboro Hawks defense does look to be laboring a bit after another dominant season. PHS had to scrap for its 3 TDs against Sullivan in Week 12’s upset title triumph, and we didn’t expect the Indians to produce more than 1-2 meaningful scores against the Blue & White in Week 13. It bears mentioning that the second half of the Hillsboro-Festus championship final was the first occasion on which Mississippi Magazine noted any HHS players getting helped off the gridiron, all year. There’s injuries, but they’re not hurting much with the ball in hand.

It isn’t exactly the best time to go shorthanded on defense, with Lutheran North planning to visit for Saturday’s semifinal kickoff. The Lutheran North Barnstormin’ All-Stars couldn’t contain Hannibal’s NFL legacy kid on Friday, but they racked up 10 touchdowns and XPs (Lutheran North seems better at kicking XPs than its clone-team Cardinal Ritter) to storm to a 70-61 “TCU-Baylor” style victory. Lutheran North quarterback Dakari Hollis has an unfathomable 2600+ yards, 34 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions on the year, a stats shocker that compares to QB Carson Boyd’s record when HHS met Ritter in 2022.

But there are, to be sure, still some potential edges for the Hillsboro Hawks in what may be the program’s best chance to reach a Show-Me Bowl in 50 years. Hillsboro will play host to Lutheran North on what may be a chilly, windy, or even wet Saturday afternoon after Turkey Day, always a blessing to the running team against a pass-happy team. Preston’s passes don’t create the sort of imbalance at Lutheran North this year, as Crusaders’ ball-carriers ran just enough “backfield by committee” to defeat the powerhouse Blair Oaks Falcons in a September battle of ranked titans.

Lutheran North’s defense is also looking even softer, of course, after giving up 61 points and a late comeback effort from Hannibal that shouldn’t have happened, considering that Lutheran was tacking a “70-35” sign on the door (<— see what The Geek did there?!?) with merely minutes to go in the game. Hillsboro, without a doubt, used to be more comfortable in tight contests. But the ’23 Varsity Hawks can fly in a shoot-out.

We’ll take a closer look at Lutheran North very soon. For now, congratulations to the Hillsboro Hawks – and the Crystal City Hornets – on becoming 2 out of 3 (count them, 3!!!) Jefferson County football programs to have arguably their best seasons EVER this fall. Those doom-saying training camp forecasts must have been for some other place.

St. Vincent 45, Crystal City 14

Take my wife, please. The Gridiron Geek does not want to be so cliche as to say – all together now – the game was closer than the score indicated. That’s like telling a golfer to keep your left arm straight, or telling a bowler to aim for an arrow on the lane. It’s like one of those Tennis manuals which say that Clay Court games require “Speed, power, and accuracy,” while Grass Court games require “Power, accuracy, and speed,” and Hard Court games – wait for it – require accuracy, speed, and power. (That’s straight from so-called expert’s sports writing guides, and it’s also why TGG quit reporting on Tennis.)

But heck, we’re a candid football blog here, and Crystal City’s championship bout WAS in fact closer than a score “45-14” would ever indicate. For some perspective, the Park Hills Central Rebels scored 3 times versus the sophomore-speckled Herculaneum Blackcats before you could say “inexperienced down linemen,” but the score of that game was merely 44-14. For the 2023 Crystal City Hornets’ final fight to finish “45-14” was a crime considering how St. Vincent was all-shook-up in Quarter 2. The Indians did not in any sense “run-up” the final score, in fact everybody at CCHS seems to like them a lot. Mississippi Magazine is glad to say that that isn’t the only positive from Week 13.

Maybe there’s another way to look at Crystal’s 2-1 playoff record and tough loss on Friday. It’s possible that nobody realized it before or after that glorious 2nd quarter in St. Vinny’s, but the CCHS Hornets – as a program – fought their way out of a deep, dangerous hole, accomplishing (once again!) everything needed to keep a miracle of a revival going. It would be fair to claim Crystal City dodged a bullet, except it didn’t dodge – it pushed.

The bright side of Crystal City’s road woes is that with each on-campus recruitment SO important to the football team, and with EVERY youth player in the Middle School poised to make a difference as soon as he (or she) chooses to put on a Varsity jersey, you would rather see exciting Hornet victories at home than on the road if you had to choose one or the other. On a given High School campus, most of the students notice a big home-field victory, even if they don’t go to the game. But meanwhile, news of the road losses just washes through the ears of kids who’re not performing or volunteering on Varsity.

An epic blow-out from St. Vincent on Friday might have shot that “safety valve” all to hell for Coach Fox’s staff trying to get more kids to come out in the offseason. Crystal City was competing in a championship clash on J-98 radio, and Bradley’s Farm had experienced a playoff buzz like never before on Wednesday and Thursday. The entire school and the community was listening in. There wouldn’t have been anywhere to hide if CCHS was outmatched by St. Vinny’s for 48:00 – only grim memories of the same-old, same-old.

For a scary first few minutes, it looked like the worst could happen. St. Vincent beat Crystal City’s swift defensive backfield with a long catch-and-run on its first series, and CCHS’s attempt at a response put Coach Dan Fox on a hot seat – or at least a high pressure weather pattern – as soon as the Hornets reached the Indians’ 40-yard line. New quarterback Cale Schaumburg could have sprang a long gain on a Triple-Option play, though it meant he would have to toss a pinpoint lateral to the outside rusher. Not Schaumburg’s specialty, at least not in the Year Of Our Lord 2023. St. Vincent’s savvy team capitalized on the bobble with a recovery, and then another rapid touchdown drive. Scoreboards read – and spoke – “14-0” all over the region. That smirking and ignorant “consensus” pick of a St. Vincent cakewalk was becoming a bad dream in the flesh.

But in a flash of real courage, the CCHS Hornets got up from their disaster of an opening frame, and began to play with the confidence of a state playoff contender. Schaumburg led a big-time TD drive and 2-point conversion effort that closed St. Vincent’s lead to merely 14-8, and the Hornet defense stiffened against the rush while putting stops together against Christian Schaaf, who could easily be the best QB in Class 1.

Then the Hornets’ “October surprise” 3-man backfield really went to work, as an offensive line populated by only 2 seniors started to produce daylight (or night-light) within the I-55 Conference’s most vaunted defensive front. Crystal City scored to tie the contest following a brilliant, if frustrating sequence of plays in which the Hornets were denied a Kanden Bolton touchdown on a holding penalty, then tallied 6 points anyway on a wonderful scoring bomb from Schaumburg to Camden Mayes in the corner of the end zone.

ALL-righty. Now an offense was tearing into the St. Vinny’s defense for a change, and if the Indians weren’t a championship level team, things would have gone very differently. Caden Raftery and the Sunken Place defensive front was starting to record QB hurries and sacks – ACTUAL QB HURRIES AND SACKS, “Eisenbeis Syndrome” be blasted – because everybody knows that Mr. Schaaf is actually going to throw when he steps backward toward the pocket and looks around. However, The Geek – and also probably Raftery – would’ve traded in those QB-pressure stats for another 23,724 tackles-for-loss, such as came against the run-heavy Tipton Cardinals in Crystal City’s suffocating 8-6  semifinal win. St. Vincent’s QB was about to remind everyone why he’s a #1 seed.

Schaff, facing a blitz near midfield on 3rd-Down-and-10 with 1:30 to go in the half, zinged a laser of a throw out to a slot receiver, who grabbed it and turned to run past the sticks just like a pro. St. Vincent’s receivers remind The Geek of the slick skill-players that Caruthersville always gets its hands on, but they’ve never had a quarterback who can feel pressure and unload a perfect ball like Schaaf can. Crystal’s defense did everything it could to prevent a key go-ahead score from St. Vincent at the end of the 1st half, but “Caruthersville North” WRs weren’t the half of the visitors’ problems as Schaaf beat CCHS’s defense to the punch. Soon, Schaaf had manufactured a 21-14 lead again, followed later by beating Crystal’s defense on ANOTHER very well-executed (and undeniably sneaky!) blitz from the Hornets in the Red Zone to toss an easy TD.

The championship was decided by St. Vincent’s man with a plan. Schaaf enjoyed solid blocking from his OL for most of the night, but also displayed velocity, accuracy, and timing that Crystal’s defense. for all of its strong points, just isn’t used to dealing with. Schaumburg’s inside ground game dried up in spite of Cohen Compton having his breakout night against a fine defense at the perfect time, and then the devil really appeared, as Crystal City’s players began showing fatigue for the very first time.

Don’t worry, our local Class 1 defense was still a titan in that 3rd quarter. St. Vincent was forced into a chip-shot field goal (it must be nice to kick “chip shots” in Class 1, but that St. Vinny’s kicking game gives Hillsboro’s a run for its money!) after a great sequence from Crystal’s defensive backs, who knocked accurate fast-balls down and out of receivers’ hands, and did their level best to overcome a spotty pass rush in front of them. The comeback seemed possible yet. But when it got to 31-14, the Hornets sagged.

It was a long season. The Hornets played and defeated a ranked team with 2x their roster size last week, meaning that there wasn’t much room-for-error against another program carrying so many bodies and such a sharp demeanor. It wouldn’t be much consolation that St. Vincent is now a co-favorite to win the Show-Me Bowl in Class 1, except that everyone can see the Perryville boys deserve it, and it would be fun to watch that quarterback zip the ball around one more time a weekend after Thanksgiving.

Where does Crystal City football go from here? Through exactly one more great trial and tribulation, and no, we don’t mean that the Mississippi’s going to submerge the Sunken Place again. Nolan Eisenbeis will lead another spectacular crew of top athletes on a Bradley’s Farm river flat that should stay dry enough, if 2024 is anything like 2023. However, the absence of 9 graduates puts CCHS in another numbers squeeze.

It’s only temporary. We think the Crystal City gang will be established with 20+ roster sizes from 2025 going forward, especially now that there’s not a sensible 13-year-old buckaroo anywhere near Plattin Creek who wouldn’t want to audition for the hottest new thing on campus, aka a winning and respected Friday Night Lights team. But the Hornets could face another season of 15-or-so able players in the short term if the breaks don’t go Crystal’s way next summer. It’ll be touch-and-go trying to mint a consistent record.

Don’t worry about Crystal City not having All-22 football practice. The best All-22 practice for Missouri teams is the MSHSAA playoffs, and boy, do the 2023 Crystal City Hornets have a legacy from this year’s “practice” that they can tell their grandkids about.

Check back again for a preview of Hillsboro and Lutheran North’s state semifinal as early as Turkey Day, and a closer look at the Crystal City Hornets in Nolan Eisenbeis’ senior year-to-come in The Gridiron Geek’s final Jefferson County Power Poll of 2023.