St. Pius X is finally off the slow-motion Elevator it was on. The Lancers spent Week 4 through Week 8 crushing medicore teams and getting crushed by a superior team. Skeptics of The Geek’s #6 Jefferson County Power Poll ranking thought St. Pius X would take another blow to the chin against Valle U. in Week 9. But instead, the Lancers took the gridiron on Valle’s hallowed grounds and showed how far they’ve come since Week 1’s loss to Caruthersville, taking a 7-0 halftime lead and outgaining the Warriors 308-187 in a 14-7 defeat. Valle Catholic’s latest strategy is alternating quarterbacks Sam Kuehn and Andrew Schilly, but the pair only manufactured a 6-for-15 passing line against SPX’s fast secondary.
Valle is poised to play in a Class 3 District Championship Game on November 14. The fact that Hill Valley gave Valle what-for for 48:00 makes Week 9 a “statement loss” if there is ever such a thing. St. Pius’ near miss against a Show-Me Bowl-caliber team casts the Lancers as district co-favorites alongside their likely Week 12 rematch rival in Caruthersville.
There’s a spoiler in the mix, however. The St. Vincent Indians have benefited by a “hole-y crap” schedule which allowed the Indians to go 5-3 and win the QCC conference title despite playing six actual games plus one exhibition, enjoying two rest weeks due to opposing forfeits. The freshened Varsity Indians demolished Jefferson one week after ruining Grandview’s chance at a Cinderella’s league championship. But those games occurred after the St. Vincent kids had virtually three weeks of stress-free rest and practice in midseason. How the St. Vincent Indians will perform once the district playoffs get rolling, and they’re forced to keep playing for keeps every Friday, is anyone’s guess.
Jefferson is still mired in an untimely slump. We noticed, though, that the Blue Jays had a decent start against the Indians in Week 9’s eventual 33-point loss to St. Vinny’s. If the Blue Jays’ star players are healthy in Week 11 – presuming that Jefferson makes it there – there’s a chance Blue Jay Way’s padawans could look at the bracket and see a path. Conversely, based on what we know of Week 9’s action, it appears as though a loathsome injury could be poised to hamper the hurting ‘Jays further in the District Q-Finals.
Class 2, District 1 Tournament Seeds and Opening Round Games
Week 10 District Quarterfinals (October 30-31):
#1 Caruthersville Tigers (Bye)
#2 St. Pius Lancers vs #7 East Prairie Eagles
#3 St. Vincent Indians vs #6 Kelly Hawks
#4 Jefferson Blue Jays vs #5 New Madrid County Central Eagles (Thursday 10/30)
It wasn’t how many yards St. Pius gained at Valle Catholic, but the way it got those yards that casts SPX as a playoff contender. The Lancers rushed for 200+ yards against the #1 seed Caruthersville Tigers in Week 1, yet they never successfully played keep-away like they did in the first half at Valle two months later.
Herky administrators will get upset if they read this, but the Lancers’ vibe in last Friday’s near-upset of the Warriors reminded Mississippi Magazine of the Herculaneum Blackcats of the 1990s, with Cody Shaver in the “Scott Croom” role, churning the chains out of a Wishbone formation. We think St. Pius can use its Wishbone package to improve on its dicey plus-territory stats that prevented as many as three possible wins in a 4-5 regular season. The important thing right now is that the Lancers are moving the sticks and draining the clock against all opponents, good, lousy, and in between. Shaver has actually rushed for more first downs against SPX’s toughest foes.
Here’s Shaver with a particularly bullish run versus 8-1 Knob Noster. Cris Collinsworth would call Shaver the “YAC (yards-after-contact)” champ of the Tri-Cities:
We’re glad to see St. Pius seed #2 instead of #1 for several reasons. It’s bad for Missouri pigskin when teams with losing records seed first, and receive byes in district play (Vianney-*COUGH*-this year-*COUGH*), and in the long-term sense it’s bad for the team that gets the #1 nod. You don’t want to develop a reputation as a team that simply scheduled its way into the #1 berth in the tournament. The Geek has tried hard to explain that Hill Valley’s way-up, way-down, WAY-up level of opponents has been an accident – for instance last year, Miller had a good game with Class 4, District 2’s champion Gateway, and Cuba defeated Grandview and Herky in consecutive home games – hardly the cupcakes that St. Pius chomped on this midseason. It’s weird to say about a school that schedules Moon-shots like last year’s trips to Mississippi and Tennessee, however it really did look like the Lancers might have nine well-fought games in a row this season before it all started – it just didn’t work out that way. St. Pius is hungry to manufacture wins on level ground against Class 2. A healthy Lancers squad will relish Week 10’s Q-Finals against visiting East Prairie. What’s better is that Halloween’s quarterfinals will help St. Pius by making St. Vincent take the wear-and-tear of fierce competition. it’s helped St. Vincent not to play often, but now the ‘Injuns have to.
Finally, if St. Pius X can’t have a solid postseason bout with one of the JCAA’s “ringleaders” who kicked our Catholic school out of county sports, at least they’re poised to host St. Vincent, a school that belonged to the wonderful I-55 Conference that St. Pius used to be in, and which (as The Geek understands it) had no qualms about pushing Hill Valley out to create the QCC. If St. Pius beats the team that just won the QCC in such quirky style, it will be another kind of statement win. St. Vincent’s administrators can’t cry “Advertising!” following a defeat to St. Pius X, given Hill Valley’s public GPA and the fact that the Indians basically have their own radio network at this point.
Jefferson’s QB Cooper Frisk appears to be injured. Frisk came out of last Friday’s encounter with St. Vincent after merely a few turns, according to the Box Score, making way for the understudy Sam Kerley to toss 28 passes for a solid 18 completitions. Having not caught the Jefferson-STV stream when it was live on MSHSAA TV, The Geek went back to stream the game and try to find the moment when Frisk had to leave the contest. But the Blue Jays made their MSHSAA TV footage of Week 9’s game into a random parorama of JHS’s unattended field at night for all three hours of the stream. It’s likely that Jefferson’s sports department would do that following an injury to a star QB that administrators don’t want their playoff rivals (or the hometown fans, for that matter) watching over. Yet, the ‘Jays made their telling stat line from the scrum quite public.
We hope Jefferson can somehow defeat New Madrid – not on Halloween but a day early on Thursday. That’ll lead to better crowd attendance than a Halloween game tends to draw, hopefully to bring good cheer to a venue that’s turned gloomy with the weather. MSHSAA TV’s image fits too perfectly, a spooky reminder of JHS’s somber vibe of ’25.
Caruthersville isn’t in such promising straits, either. The 7-2 Tigers have too much of an injury-depleted defense to eliminate the Lancers the way that Hermann knocked St. Pius out in the District Semfinals last year. The Tigers may not even be able to beat St. Pius the way that Caruthersville beat St. Pius on August 29. They’ll have to outscore the Lancers to prevail. It’s tough to predict Caruthersville to lose a potential District Championship Game to a school against which it’s got a longstanding winning streak going, especially on home turf with the benefit of a bye. At the same time, CHS has gone on its own unhealthy diet of cupcakes, making the Tigers candidates to be shocked by the Lancers’ improvement on 11/14.
We’re optimistic about District 1’s chances against District 2’s winner from a field led by a team called “Montgomery County” that The Geek has never heard of. We’re not as optimistic of a potential Dirty Dozen winner in C2D1 getting past the state semis, because #1 seed Salisbury of District 7 has allowed (GULP) one meaningful TD all year.
CLASS 2, DISTRICT 1 PREDICTIONS:
DISTRICT CHAMPION: ST. PIUS LANCERS
RUNNER-UP: CARUTHERSVILLE TIGERS