#1 – Festus Tigers
It’s tricky for Mississippi Magazine to make political remarks about the Highway A Game’s media coverage. Many readers know that The Geek now resides on Highway A and that Hillsboro versus Festus was his first ever local blog beat. We’ve spent 20,000 words of Suburban League coverage trying to prove that there are no “secretly favored” teams at the site. TGG would like to think that if he had opened a newspaper after the Fox-Seckman (or the Fox-Northwest) clash earlier this season and found THIS hierarchy of game recaps::
… we would have a problem.
What the FLIP?! Russell Korando has spent long enough in Jefferson County’s scene to know that Festus-Hillsboro is the county’s crown jewel. None of the other great rivalries like Herky-versus-Crystal City or Fox-versus-Northwest have been able to hold their series together administratively, let alone stay perched in the same conference and District races at the same time. If Korando thinks that Hillsboro-Festus in the regular season has become a preliminary so long as the two Show-Me Bowl contenders appear to be dominant in their District, that’s something that The Geek would tend to agree with, and it makes the rivalry unique because it’s not tied into “Army-Navy Game” circumstances. Hillsboro and Festus kids are happy to have their “rivalry event” anytime, anywhere, twice a year if necessary. But if so, the JCL’s editor could have added a fourth sentence to his recap to explain.
(If Northwest-Fox from Week 6 gets a footnote in a far-right bottom corner of the Jefferson County Leader this Thursday – growl – TGG will be going as “political” as CNN.)
No disrespect to Cody Shaver and the St. Pius Lancers in the Leader’s top spot, either. Because of the way Shaver’s season has been treated by other media sources (we’ll get to that on #6), it’s pretty cool if the JCL wants to boost the Lancers to try to compensate. Festus vs Hillsboro didn’t have to get a footnote because St. Pius’ win streak got its well-deserved feature. One caveat to all this is that JeffCo’s got so many fabulous stories going on the gridiron, it’s easier to get distracted away from a diamond like HHS-FHS.
They’ll square off again in Week 12, and hopefully by then there will be less static to go with a smaller MSHSAA field. Festus did make a statement by winning the teams’ first clash so handily. That brings us to someone in the FHS Booster Club getting upset that they can’t well use a “Statement Win” headline 2-3 times in a row, and taking it out on The Geek:
The Festus boosters’ digital program and media guide are appeciated beyond belief and serve as a model for Missouri’s other teams. The recaps in the programs are the best that The Gridiron Geek has read from anyone in the county in a long time – better than JeffCo’s short-lived beat at Ameritime Sports and better than many of the Leader’s recaps. If the recap writer thinks we have something against them, please sir (or madam) check out any of last season’s many Festus columns in which The Geek praised your publicity efforts.
Having said that – don’t shoot the messenger my friend. Mississippi Magazine was trying to warn you that Midmeadow Lane was going to make a lot bigger “statements” in the next several weeks after taking its accustomed steep win over Windsor … like outscoring Hillsboro and North County by a combined 13 to 5 touchdowns. You already blew the shot with the “Statement Win!” headline, so now you can’t make the next home-field win into the “Statement Win!” even though the Tigers just made 100,000x more of a statement. It’s akin to Terry Funk using the Shining Star Sunset Flip against Stan “The Lariat” Hansen in minute 1:00 and then having nowhere to go but down. Entertainers have to be patient. When the Farmington home game rolls around, the boosters might have to ret-con Week 3 in favor of Weeks 4-6, lest their programs read “Statement-Statement-Statement.”
Where do the Festus Tigers fit in on an STLToday stat leaders page, on which the Dirty Dozen has players leading or just behind in most categories? Ehh … nothing too sexy in that department. The Tigers remain too successful as an ensemble cast to get Leuontae Williams or Kamden Yates to a 1000-yard statistical line in midseason. Yates has played on the boundary too often to take so many as 30 carries anyway. Williams has galloped for about 700 yards thus far. An exception is QB Parker Perry’s efficiency stats, which are mind-bogglingly great for a first-year starter. Perry’s ratio of 16 touchdowns to 0 interceptions is a feat that snuck up on The Geek, and so did his 81% (!!!) completion percentage.
Perry may have one or two turnovers on the six-week ledger that Festus or another team forgot to log. But not a significant number of them. Perry’s passing accuracy has eclipsed even Cole Rickermann’s best nights so far, and it’s not due to a rash of cautious dump-offs from a signal-caller who’s also averaging 3+ touchdown tosses per tilt this autumn.
Finally, this Friday’s fracas at DeSmet could turn out to be Black & Gold’s most entertaining game of the year. We erred in listing Cardinal Ritter’s early-season foil as “DeSmet” this summer (that was Jackson) but the Spartans have beaten District 2’s favorite Vianney, and DeSmet’s 54-13 loss to CBC is merely a sign that the reloading Class 6 champs probably can’t punish a bad Festus fourth frame to the tune of 42-13 again. We can’t see FHS blowing out DeSmet under any circumstances, either. It’s almost guaranteed to be a good’un.
#2 – Seckman Jaguars
The Geek always had a bad feeling in his tummy about Seckman Football emphasizing its battles with Jackson so much. Not that the Varsity Jaguars are incapable of defeating the powerful Jackson Indians, as shown by last autumn’s lively postseason game. But more than anything, it was a natural reaction to the Jags’ unique circumstances as a club that had outgrown so many of its Suburban League rivals so quickly. It didn’t have a negative impact to create a rivalry with a District opponent while the conference was such a cupcake.
Now the Jaguars have a big, fat, red-flashing roadblock ahead of them before they can get to a game with Jackson in 2025. Northwest may not have the best team in Jefferson County – yet – but we can all agree that the Lions have the top quarterback (Cohenn Stark), the top running back (Drew Spratt), and the top receiver (Omarion Frazier) out of three Suburban League rosters in the Dirty Dozen. Imperial’s 35-point win over Cedar Hill in Week 3 gave the illusion of Seckman outclassing Northwest all over again. What actually happened is that Seckman successfully sat on a powder keg for 48 minutes, getting just lucky enough to stay in “Turbo Clock” range against a demoralized Lions team. It’s anyone’s guess what will happen when the Jaguars and Lions meet again in Week 11. Seckman must redirect its attention to a local rival instead of the Jackson Indians.
This year’s Seckman formula for winning 49-14 instead of losing 40-27 involves getting QB Brody Kube into a rhythm. With a “backfield by commitee” ground game, the only way to create daylight against District foes is to force their defense to back off the line-of-scrimmage. Head coach Nick Baer’s modus operandi is to treat all Suburban League patsies the same as any other opponents, going in with a run-heavy game plan against winless teams if he thinks it will give SHS a 35-0 lead instead of a 21-0 lead at the break. Right now, Seckman has to resist that urge and forget about the scoreboard, which is going to work out in the Jaguars’ favor against Hazelwood East and Parkway South anyway. It’s more important to straighten out Seckman’s inconsistent offense by making it as balanced and versatile as it’s supposed to be in 2025. Throw early and often against Little Debbie, hopefully to get Kube into the rhythm that Fox and Seckman’s quarterbacks have both fallen out of, ever since the miraculous mayhem of Week 2’s classic showdown.
#3 – Northwest Lions
Sometimes, it happens just like that. Here are the Northwest Lions roaring at #3 in their best Jefferson County Power Poll since we started ranking all 12 teams back in 2019. QB Cohenn Stark’s squad did more than beat rival Arnold to split a series 1-1 and reignite a classic matchup. They made Fox High’s bruising brand of pigskin look stale and dull.
There’s no two ways about it – this year’s Varsity Lions offense is one of the top units in the Suburban League. It’s too early to say that Northwest is a dynamo against the upper tier of Class 6 given that Seckman and Fox’s (especially Fox’s) schedules are so much tougher than the Lions’ slate of 2025, and we don’t always get to say it about Fox’s or Seckman’s offenses either. But the Northwest schedule hasn’t been a duck walk. Playing against a batch of opponents that has included two of Mississippi Magazine’s top three teams plus the bugaboo Webster Groves Statesmen, the Lions have averaged 45.2 points per game, manufacturing close to 1750 rushing yards and close to 1000 passing yards. Stark leads all St. Louis-area rushers with 19 touchdowns and ranks third in rushing yards with 1023. That’s a “Lamar Jackson”-style statistic, a Shotgun QB leading a bunch of RBs in rush yards!
The weird part is that Northwest runs the “NCAA offense,” as it is called by old-school gurus, but NHS is putting out some stat lines that resemble what an old-school offense might show in a season of domination. For example, senior WR Omarion Frazier is averaging less than four catches per game with only three receiving TDs on six Fridays. But look at his yards-per-catch average of 20+ which is practically off the charts. Frazier’s junior teammate Kaleb Belcher has less than 10 total touches on the season counting runs, pass targets, and kickoff returns. Yet he’s got two touchdown catches and another terrific 19-yard average per reception. To quote the option “guru” Paul Johnson: “When you throw it, mean it.”
Cedar Hill could be boasting a #2 ranking in the Dirty Dozen, were it not for that pesky 49-14 loss in The Valley. The Gridiron Geek attended that game and got to stand on the fence behind the Varsity Lions (they don’t announce “Do Not Lean on the Fence” like they do at Festus High School, where the Superintendent usually waves at TGG to come break the rule with him) and he did not see an athletically overmatched team. He saw a slightly less-deep team making mistakes and falling behind to the #2 Seckman Jaguars, who can preserve a nice lead like Inter Milan these days. But it was only four weeks ago, and the Jaguars fan base would have a legitimate beef with Mississippi Magazine if we put Northwest ahead of Seckman in Week 7. There’s a rematch coming up the pike, don’t worry, but it’s part of why Cedar Hill’s revival may not be as viral as it should be.
Wouldn’t you know, the Suburban’s schedule and MSHSAA’s strange system will conspire to take some “oomph” out of Northwest’s upstart bid for Class 6 relevancy, at least until there’s one great big massive “Grand Finale” explosion right near the end. Northwest is about to play two teams in a row who have no opportunity to scrape the Lions, followed by one potentially entertaining game against Oakville. Seckman, meanwhile, is about to go on a cupcake binge. The rematch is essentially set for Seckman High School on Week 11, the rematch that we almost certainly know will be a better battle than Week 3’s breeze. That’s exciting. But because of how Missouri is still loading up Class 2 thru Class 5 and leaving 40-team fields in Class 1 and Class 6, the Northwest Lions won’t get to claim what would have been a celebratory Week 10 victory on home turf over a #6 seed. The upcoming slate is academic for the Lions and Jaguars. Northwest’s offense can set school and conference records by Week 9. But it ought to save everything for Nov. 7th.
#4 – Hillsboro Hawks
If styles make fights, Hillsboro could be in for a doozy against DeSoto. The Geek has always felt that an underdog that is stronger on defense has a better chance against a weaker defensive team that needs to score a lot of points to win. (If the UCLA Bruins’ defense was as poor as UCLA’s offense was prior to its performance against Penn State, the Bruins would have had little hope to upset the Nittany Lions last weekend.) If DeSoto can bother Hillsboro’s ailing defense just enough to keep the chains moving, it plays to the DHS Dragons’ strenghs, since DeSoto’s defense has become a unit that can look great for 20:00 of a scrum, or look thin and small and ineffective after going 30:00 of the game.
Hillsboro’s best chance for a decisive win is to crank up its own ground game, and force DeSoto’s defense to play those 30 minutes via a time-of-possession edge for the Blue & White. To do that, the Hawks have to improve on Braxton Chazelle and Joseph Jordan’s yards-per-carry averages, which are presently mired at 3.9 and 4.1 YPC respectively. Trey Zimmerly, a lightweight rassler at HHS who doubles as a third-down weapon for the Varsity Hawks, is the answer if Hillsboro needs an explosive play against DeSoto, having galloped for a team-leading 6.1 YPC while snagging 20 catches. Can Zimmerly be utilized to help control the ball too? Jaxin Patterson did it as a squeaky-thin 14 year old.
#5 – Fox Warriors
It isn’t quite time to say Brent Tinker is on a hot seat at Fox. Tinker is the coach who pulled Fox out of its 2010s doldrums, got the Warriors into a Class 6 semifinal in 2020, and can’t seem to help but give the Seckman Jaguars a tight game. Tinker’s issue isn’t that his team isn’t any good, but that administrators are watching a changing landscape beyond Fox.
Fox is having the type of “almost had ’em” season that the Farmington Black Knights had in 2024 prior to the sacking of Eric Kruppe, and the arrival of the Shotgun-Spread offense in Farmington this year. Following the 2024 Black Knights’ 24-17 and 49-35 losses to North County and Jackson respectively, Kruppe’s former team fell to Cape Girardeau Central 54-14 in the type of performance a team has when it has given up on a methodical playbook. Fox’s kids began showing signs of the same syndrome when the Northwest Lions claimed a stunning 35-14 lead over the Warriors last Friday. We know that Tinker’s staff noticed because it led to an overly-aggressive Triple Option play call on Fox’s last scrimmage play of the first half that was a disaster. The risky call came from a desire to show Fox’s players that their offense could still be exciting … and it backfired.
Now the Farmington Black Knights are 76-0 with 17,539 points scored this season, which has to make Arnold’s coaches a little uneasy. Farmington looks like a brand new team with interested and fully-bought-in athletes. The Warriors don’t have to fire the coaches, bring a passing-game guru in, and ask quarterbacks like Chandler Price to throw a zillion times every Friday. But you’d better believe that if Arnold continues losing games while looking tuned-out on the gridiron, some School Board member will decide that that’s the answer.
Price has had a rough ride trying to get Fox High’s passing game going this year. But he’s been given very scant attempts against a collection of tough defenses and bitter rivals. That’s no way for a QB to get into a passing rhythm. Fox is under serious pressure to show something against Lindbergh. The first step is to perform with some kind of balance.
#6 – St. Pius Lancers
Highway A isn’t the only pigskin mecca that’s getting snubbed in the local press. St. Pius X’s running back Cody Shaver is leading the St. Louis area in yardage:
… but Shaver has not been given the Jefferson County Leader’s award for Player of the Week at any point. Live Stream STL also ignored his 209 yards on 15 carries (gulp) in Hill Valley’s program record-setting 70-0 win on Homecoming:
Maybe there’s a feeling that Shaver, a 5’11” junior with a deceptive stride, has “racked up” his stats against the Lancers’ softened schedule of the past three weeks. But a cursory look at SPX’s box scores shows that it’s not the case. Shaver has been really good against outstanding teams, like when he rushed for an amazing 184 yards against the 6-0 Knob Noster Panthers in Week 3. In its own way, St. Pius’ loss at Knob Noster this year was more impressive than its victory over KNHS ’24, but it’s all a non-story according to some.
The Geek has been accused of favoring QB Evan Eckrich over Shaver and Hill Valley’s other boys, which is preposterous because The Geek doesn’t know the Eckriches or their orchard. Besides, the Lancers’ rivalry is with their opponents, not each other. You have to be a Socialist to think that there’s a set number of points that a team can score and that the kids and their families must fight for permission to score a greater percentage of them. Coach Frank Ray is teaching the 2025 Lancers a form of “Capitalism” in which players can – wait for it – help each other’s success by succeeding. If anyone wants one kid to be the star of every St. Pius game, ask them why they’re craving to have a crappy team so bad.
If the Magazine had a scary reaction to Shaver accounting for 96.7% of the Lancers’ offense in Week 1’s loss to Caruthersville, it was because of past trauma and old recaps that the haters don’t read before commenting. Sure, you can give your blue-chip standout 90% of the offense and a billion carries beginning in August, but it means he’ll get no chance to dominate in November. We’ve watched overused star players collapse on the field by Week 9, like Andrew Graves’ junior season ending as he was helped off the gridiron on Senior Night, causing TGG to shout at Jefferson’s coaches for playing him way too much against Chaffee and Fredericktown (“HAPPY NOW?!”). Our maxim about not entrusting your whole game plan in one kid isn’t ever a slight against a player so talented that coaches would consider having such a plan. It’s just a bad idea, period, regardless of how many points you can score in the short term. To HC Frank Ray’s credit, SPX got itself balanced on offense after Week 1 and built one of the county’s best, most consistent units around Eckrich.
#7 – Grandview Eagles
TGG may have been wrong about Class 1, District 2 becoming a free-for-all. There is a favorite to win the District championship emerging, and it goes by “Grandview.”
Grandview and Charleston are Missouri’s “east coast” Class 1 bids who have recently arrived from Class 2. It’s interesting to observe how alike the two teams are in some respects, and how Grandview appears to be 236x better in other aspects such as the boys’ attitudes and the versatility of the Eagles’ playbook. Charleston might have had the biggest and strongest line of all 40 Class 1 teams last season without doing enough with it to get past the District Semifinals. Grandview is taking a two-way line that averages 275 lbs. and accomplishing a whole lot with it, surging to #1 in the District 2 points race and forging a 3-1 conference record as the smallest public school in the Quad County league.
Week 11 and (hopefully) Week 12’s pairings are another angle on which Grandview has it all over Charleston so far this year. Charleston may not be able to get past Portageville, a remarkably consistent state-playoff contender these days, to win District 1. The Blue Jays might even have to visit the Bulldogs. The only way Grandview, a favorite in the District 2 tournament after coming close to defeating four Class 4 teams in a row, could wind up visiting another campus in Week 12 would be if Crystal City upsets the Birds of Prey in Week 9 for “jumping” rights in MSHSAA seeding. But even then, the 2-4 Hornets might not be in the #2 slot if and when that outcome occurs, which would also preserve Grandview High’s home-field advantage. What The Geek is most pleased to see from the Birds of Prey is the team getting healthier, not more injured, going into the campaign’s stretch run. It’s not unfathomable that Wyatt Keim’s team could win four consecutive times going into the postseason. Jefferson and St. Vincent make excellent but squirrelly opponents in 2025.
#8 – DeSoto Dragons
DeSoto is going to be favored to prevail in its Week 10 District Quarterfinal. In fact, The Geek believes that there’s almost no way DeSoto High hasn’t already “clinched for practical purposes” a playoff seed that will guarantee at least one postseason home game for the Dragons. HC Russ Schmidt will not be happy with The Geek making Joachim Junction’s boys overconfident, but with DeSoto’s win over Windsor in hand, the Dragons would have to do a whole lot of losing, combined with crazy outcomes elsewhere, to fall to #5.
Sikeston is walking the plank against Jackson this weekend, a preordained Turbo Clock final score that will push the Bulldogs further down in the standings. North County’s head to head win over DeSoto probably won’t be able to “count” as a reason to move the Bonne Terre Buccaneers up over the Dragons in Week 10 because you have to be right behind a team to do that. North County would need to win all three of its remaining games (and hope for good breaks on the MSHSAA scoreboard), an improbable turn of events given how ineffective Noah Lashley’s lineup has appeared. The only bummer news is that #3 Perryville’s crave for cupcakes hasn’t gone away, illustrated by a Little Debbie’s stretch run of opponents Saxony Lutheran, Herculaneum, and Pevely High School Cuba which contrasts Hillsboro’s tough finish against DeSoto, Chaminade, and Poplar Bluff. DHS could potentially jump over Perryville for the #3 seed based on Week 2’s win whether the Dragons pass the Pirates or not, but we fear PHS will weasel into the #2 seed again.
#9 (T) – Jefferson Blue Jays
We know from experience that Jefferson plays 20+ points below its “handicap” in a game at Perryville. (The same is often true of the #8 ranked Birds of Prey.) This reporter can recall that midseason day in 2023 when the Varsity Blue Jays traveled to Perryville High as 20-point favorites (my bad) and survived by the skin of their teeth on the goal line. The foul outcome at Perryville last weekend can be written off to a degree, like the case with an opposing stadium that Man City or Inter Milan always tends to trip up in. It won’t be a massive surprise if Jefferson comes out and outclasses Grandview again, but it will darn sure be a surprise if Jefferson outmuscles the hungry (and weighty) ’25 Eagles. The Jefferson Blue Jays’ margin-for-error is smaller with this fall’s roster because there isn’t always great blocking, or a 250-yard rusher in the game that JHS can fall back on.
Funny that we had Cedar Hill and R-7 face each other in 2025’s Jefferson County Power Poll Fantasy Tournament. It isn’t two weeks later that the Northwest Lions are ranked #3 after punishing an upscale opponent from the JCPP, while the ‘Jays are mired at T-9 after getting embarrassed by the blue-collar Pirates. The two teams still look similar to TGG”s eye, underscoring the fact that Jefferson County pigskin IS ON FIRE and that our double-digit number of good teams creates an NFL-Power-Rankings vibe instead of the usual “here’s Smallville at number eight again” race which a dozen High School teams of such different shapes and sizes as Mississippi Magazine’s would be thought to produce.
The Lions and Blue Jays boast tremendous upside as finesse teams, with hot-shot QB-to-WR combinations leading the way. They’re also as inconsistent as the Missouri weather at the line-of-scrimmage. Consistent and clean blocking could make Cooper Frisk’s lineup into a champion this year. More efforts like Week 6’s could turn Jefferson into an also-ran.
#9 (T) – Windsor Owls
The Geek has kept Windsor’s club on the backburner too long. It’s time to look deeper into the Owls following last week’s impressive effort against Hillsboro, a surprise after WHS was dispatched by DeSoto so easily. Star rushers have emerged in the absence of Willie Coleman III, senior Logan Wilson’s totals of 844 yards and seven TDs brushing up close to the area’s 1000+ yard leaders at this moment. Right now, though, a focus on QB Jett Black’s offense is the wrong one, since it is defense on which Windsor is still taking baby steps and where Coach Lee Freeman’s program must get better in a hurry if Imperial’s “baby contender” (out of the two, anyway) is going to make any noise in the District postseason.
It’s encouraging to see that Windsor’s junior EDGE Jayden Grindell’s pass rush against Hillsboro – a team that’s only giving teams the chance to “pass rush” a traditional QB pocket for about half of every game now – finally gave the Blackbirds a player with multiple sacks on the year. (A less-tentative summer defense would probably have finished the Clayton-Brentwood game with 15 sacks.) What’s more uplifting is the Owls’ overall stat line on defense from the Hillsboro contest, in which Windsor sacked Braxton Chazelle three times, holding Hillsboro’s famed rush offense to about 100 yards and keeping the Hawks’ talented receivers at bay on many opposing turns. The Windsor Owls have every chance to vanquish NCHS in Week 7, a quiality win from the Owls’ POV even if North County ’25 is of dicey quality. With two cupcakes lined up, Friday’s tilt could set up a 6-3 season.
#9 (T) – Herculaneum Blackcats
A series of “middle tier” outcomes in midseason offered fans a look at JeffCo’s new domination of Friday Night Lights. St. James crushed its regional opposition in Weeks 2 thru 4 via scary “55-0” scores against Class 3 to go with a punishing 35-6 defeat of Hermann High. St. Pius X – then ranked just #8 in the JCPP – stonewalled St. James 28-6 the following weekend. DeSoto, another “low-ranked” team from our crazy-great contingent of 12 contenders, faced Windsor one week after the improving Owls nearly set a Missouri state record, rushing for 650+ yards against Clayton-Brentwood in a 66-24 thrashing of the St. Louis program. The Dragons shut out Windsor in the first half of a 41-14 victory. Herculaneum’s stunningly easy win over St. Vincent from weeks ago fits the theme perfectly. Our teams are struggling against each other more than they’re tripping over anyone else.
Now we’ve got the Herculaneum Blackcats stuck at T-9 in the Jefferson County Power Poll, and just think of what 2025’s noble Blackcats have accomplished so far. The lopsided victory over St. Vincent was a dream-come-true for many Varsity Blackcats who may have never thought they would experience that. Late summer’s 28-points-scored against WHS portended a year in which Herky’s lowest output in any scrum is four touchdowns, a 31.6 points-per-game mark standing head-and-shoulders above the ledger of two decades on Blackcat Drive. Senior Keaton Reeves’ supporting cast came ever-so-close to beating Jefferson in the Blue Jays’ post-Final Four era, and is about to lay a licking on Bayless.
But who in the blue hell can we rank Herky’s best team of the 2020s ahead of? Grandview has the head-to-head win. Windsor-vs-Herky was just a preliminary for the ’25 campaigh in hindsight, but the Windsor Owls just played Hillsboro to a 27-12 score at halftime in the Owls’ finest regular-season conference performance in forever. Jefferson was sizzling hot until Perryville’s cold dousing of Week 6. St. Pius is on a winning streak. DeSoto just won another lopsided game. Help! Anybody got room on their elevator for a few Blackcats???
The Felines may be poised to leap way up the Power Poll in a brief few weeks. They’re ending the regular season against three Class 4 teams, but the scary part is that Dunklin could outscore every last one of them with its “No Flair Delaware” Wing-T revelation on offense, and Clark Struckhoff destroying would-be tacklers between the hash marks. The sloppy and overwhelmed Bayless Bronchos are the only one Herky has to play on the road. Perryville and DeSoto have to visit the smokestack for a difficult four quarters each.
#10 – Crystal City Hornets
It’s also not fair to make it look like Crystal City’s team is down off-a-cliff below Week 7’s contingent that’s tied at #9, so we compensate by cheating CCHS into the Magazine’s top ten next to the rival Herculaneum Blackcats. Crystal has not fallen off a cliff but rather smacked into a wall of Class 4 brands who are finally looking the part of programs their size, so that the band of misfits that used to be the Sunken Place’s shaky opposition has turned into resistance that would be a tall task for any Class 1 team to overcome. We’re sure that Crystal could still have a good game with Herculaneum … as soon as the Hornets get their act together. Rico Pastrana’s 150 total yards versus Gateway were no accident.
It may yet take more weeks before we see Crystal City’s turnaround. Recall that last autumn, the lineup did not really come alive until Grandview visited in Week 9. It’s a lucky break that Week 7’s visitor Duchense is among the softest of all Jefferson County’s opponents for any Homecoming Game this season. But the ’25 Hornets are under pressure to do better than beating the Pioneers 18-16 on a safety this Friday night. Do that, and it will look to all the world like there’s no chance for CCHS to beat Grandview in Week 9. If Crystal can’t somehow beat GHS again that Friday, it will most assuredly give up home-field advantage should the schools be fated to lock horns again in Week 12’s District Championship.