Festus Tigers vs Hillsboro Hawks (Class 4, District 1 Semifinals)
Today’s final prediction will forecast a game with Valle University Catholic in it, which is topical to the Highway A Game because – for all The Geek’s hanging around pigskin venues in Jeff County – the Ste. Genevieve school owns the only dressing room where TGG was ever used as a villain in pregame pep talks. “He tells lies about you!” then-and-current Valle head coach Dex R. Stacky Judd Naeger would shout at the Varsity Warriors. “When a #$#!&$ guy like that makes up lies about you, that’s when you know you’re good!”
But did Mississippi Magazine ever lie about Valle U. Catholic, or was it just an opinion that Naeger hated so much? Now that Valle has found better competition, the nickname “Olympic Athletics of Valle Catholic” fits Valle a lot better, emphasizing the Warriors’ work ethic. But the idea that a division killer needs to be sent UP-and-OUT is opinion. It can’t be a “lie,” though Duchesne’s woes demonstrate that it can be wrong. While the site’s new team has gotten most of the facts right on 2025’s Large School race, The Geek’s wrong opinions have had readers geared up for a different Week 11.
The blog has whiffed on this season’s Class 4, District 1 race, the Highway A rivalry, and Festus and Hillsboro’s outlook for the playoffs more times than it’s fun to admit. Lots of “lies” have been told in this space during 2025’s regular season (Naeger: “See I told ya!“) as the Tigers’ and Hawks’ twists and turns unfolded. We’d accused Hillsboro of not pounding the rock and playing physical enough, but that was before the Hawks ran it on 100+ plays in Weeks 8-10 and got back into the win column against Sikeston. The Geek said Festus and Hillsboro would skirmish again in “Week 12” before MSHSAA placed Perryville over top of Hillsboro and DeSoto in District 1 seeds, despite PHS being outscored 47-41 by the two Class 1 foes on its schedule and losing to common opponents like Herky. The #1 seeded Festus Tigers’ path to a C4D1 championship runs through some combination of HHS, NCHS, and Perryville again, except that it’s the dangerous Hillsboro Hawks who’ll visit Midmeadow Lane this Friday. If FHS happens to lose, there’ll be no “path” to speak of.
We thank the Festus and Hillsboro coaching staffs in advance for not scorching Mississippi Magazine in their pep talks this Friday. FHS skipper A.J. Ofodile let one of his pep-talk ideas for the State Q-Finals slip in an offhand remark to Ray Halbrook this preseason, and it’s a doozy of a theme that HHS coach Bill Sucharski’s staff will have to live up to if it’s Hillsboro’s turn to make a run in November. Both coaches can now use this ‘Friday Night Predictions’ as a warning, at least. Do Not Look Ahead Of This One Elimination Game.
That’s where Friday’s earlier-than-expected rematch comes in lucky for the Blue & White and the Black & Gold alike. Festus and Hillsboro both needed a reset, a chance to focus on one 48:00 and one crosstown rival. It’s not a matter of which team’s looking ahead, it’s a question of which team won’t look back! Parker Perry’s team can cradle the confidence of having come back to beat ferocious Farmington on Homecoming Night, but they’d better not think that the FHS-Jackson debacle of Week 9 is the best that their defense has to offer. Hillsboro’s fresh outlook, on the other hand, is related to why Friday’s visiting Hawks should be happy to get to Week 11 and Midmeadow Lane in the first place. Hillsboro High’s typically hard schedule was a ragged one in 2025 that didn’t tell us as much about Braxton Chazelle and the Hawks as we thought we might learn. But if people think FHS is Jefferson County’s legit Large Schools contender, then they have to think Hillsboro’s a contender too, because of the tough, tense first 24:00 of Week 5’s battle at Festus.
The Varsity Hawks do not want to think about what happened that night, yet its lessons could come to roost six weeks later. Hillsboro played good old scrappy Blue & White football to procure a deadlock for most of the first half when the teams met in September. Maybe, however, The Geek should have been telling Hillsboro to “pass it more!” when the talented junior WR Trey Zimmerly caught six passes without ever quite breaking away for the Run-After-Catch yards of his teammate Karson Campbell in the Hawks’ 40-14 defeat. Tiger Stadium’s lesson learned from 9/26 was that Perry’s offense cannot dominate the entire ball game, tasking Aiden Schirmer and Liam O’ Brien’s defense to hold down the fort.
Some signs point to a close call in Festus-Hillsboro 2.0. The Festus offensive and defensive lines turned jittery and jumpy in parts of their previous three games with DeSmet, Farmington, and Jackson, in which the Tigers went 1-2 while illustrating that old habits are hard to break. You can expect to see a Hillsboro defense that doesn’t take too many chances, but one that tackles its heart out for at least two quarters of the semifinal. David Russell could get open for numerous catches before going down right where he snags them. Perry, who has tied Cole Rickermann’s program record for most TD passes in a single season with 29 so far, has to let that record-breaking 30th TD come naturally. The quarterback should resist the temptation to throw downfield when there’s a wide-open checkdown in front of him. Hillsboro just needs one turnover to tilt the first half against Midmeadow Lane, after all. It’s encouraging that 5 out of junior tight end Braydon Wilkes’ 17 snags have been TD catches, showing that Perry and Wilkes know how to utilize the checkdown in the Red Zone, where the Hawks will be hunting takeaways. As for Hillsboro’s offense, the Hawks have to stick with their recent recommitment to running and power football versus FHS, even if it means putting Chazelle in third-down situations often. Chazelle can flee, foil, and frustrate R-6’s defense in short yardage, but not on 3rd-and-15.
There’s also a chance Friday’s game will be lopsided, and not just because Festus had a better regular season than Hillsboro. The games of a bitter rivalry series often stay close on the scoreboard almost no matter what until a version of one of the teams proves to be way superior, like Oregon against Oregon State in modern day. At that point, each rivalry rumble rests on a razor’s edge between being very close and very lopsided. If Hillsboro lets down emotionally, or decides at any moment that it won’t beat Festus in either game this year, all of Friday’s upset-watch vibes go away. If the Hawks see their path to a District 1 championship unfolding, with a first-half lead plus an easier opponent to conquer in Week 12 if only they can get past the Tigers, you can anticipate a hand-chewing semifinal that’ll give every nail salon on Highway A boosted profits between now and Thanksgiving.
Ofodile’s teams possess one recognizable “old habit” above all – they start slow and finish strong. Don’t be surprised if there’s another close opening half like Week 5’s. In fact, if the Tigers fidget, falter, and flub on as many pre-snap motions as they did at DeSmet less than a month ago, and Hillsboro’s defense gets to defend 15-yard sticks instead of 10, HHS will be poised to take that halftime lead. But once the #1 seed settles down, Festus should be able to take over and win convincingly with even a low-risk version of its offense, as opposed to having to ask Perry to go for broke. Hillsboro will realize to its dismay that once the FHS offensive line of ’25 gets rolling, short runs turn into longer ones, and Perry’s “checkdowns” can cash checks all the way to the end zone. A longer semifinal benefits Festus, while Hillsboro needs a two-hours-or-less game to prevail. Festus can score so swiftly any which way that HHS needs to hog the football for about 28:00, or the Hawks will run out of fresh legs to chase the Tigers. PREDICTION: TIGERS 35, HAWKS 13
Seckman Jaguars vs Northwest Lions (Class 6, District 1 Semifinals)
Our site’s hot streak of predictions over the last month is at risk of taking a nosedive in Week 11. There are a few games this Friday that look so potentially exciting, even-handed, and unpredictable that the Friday Night Predictions before you are really just for fun. Exhibit A is the Northwest Lions’ visit to Seckman for a Round 2 tilt that nearly un-booked itself when Northwest fell to Oakville in Week 9. Northwest vs Lindbergh would have made for a fun playoff game, but it’s safe to say Mississippi Magazine’s readers are overjoyed that The Valley is hosting a Jaguars-Lions rematch instead. There’s just one really weird thing about the anticipation for Northwest-at-Seckman 2.0, and that’s that while typically, a rematch is eagerly anticipated because the original batlle was close, in Seckman v Northwest’s case, we have all wanted to see a redo because the first game stank it up.
Seckman’s 49-14 demolition of Northwest in Week 3 has to have turned into the Jaguars’ most annoying blowout win to look back on. The Jaguars left no doubt that they were the superior team in what was reportedly the Jags’ and Lions’ last regular-season meeting for a while back in Week 3. Yet, by midseason, NHS’s watershed had taken over the local headlines. Cohenn Stark and Drew Spratt’s exploits against Fox High outshined what Seckman’s offense was able to do against the stubborn Warriors. Seckman then fell to Pattonville in Week 6 before chomping on a trio of cupcakes. The landscape was left open for Northwest’s first 6+ win team since 2020 to become the Hot New Item.
Imperial’s players have to be saying, “Hey, didn’t we clobber those guys?” Seckman’s got a strange sort of monkey on its back, wanting to re-earn respect as JeffCo’s “Very Large Schools” kingpins again after a fall of being overlooked despite a 7-2 record, and to accomplish that, the Jaguars must only defeat an opponent who they’ve already blown out.
Northwest’s problems were two-fold back on September 12. The Varsity Lions defense wasn’t prepared to tackle the Jaguars, and their offense wasn’t ready to stop getting out of its own way. The Geek stood at the visitors’ fence with former Herculaneum Blackcats assistant coach Michael Cook and watched Northwest bobble the bean, take penalty flags at all the worst times, and squander one chance after another to keep up with Seckman on the scoreboard. “Every little thing,” he found himself muttering to Coach Cook as another penalty flag was dropped on Stark’s lineup at midfield. “Yeah,” the Dunklin guru replied. “And once it starts going that way, it doesn’t stop until after you’ve lost the game.”
Week 9’s sloppy performance aside, the Lions have improved leaps-and-bounds since that eve. Cedar Hill’s talented offense just had to start hitting the ball over the net, and yet the defense has taken strides that we couldn’t have dreamed of in the same time frame. Webster Groves’ passing game was still pretty good on September 19, but the Lions stopped Will Travers’ offense in Quarter 4 and came back to win that contest. Following the big victory over Fox High School. the Northwest-CH defense held three opponents in a row to 10 points or less, including the 8-2 Oakville Tigers. (That happens to be the same number of points Seckman’s defense allowed to OHS.) HC Scott Gerling has been borrowing from Class 1-thru-4 coaches in utilizing Spratt and Omarion Frazier both ways effectively. The pair has made 67 tackles to go with 13 TDs. Jacob Hartle has five sacks on the year.
Seckman’s EDGE ace Dylan Lappe still has twice as many sacks as Hartle. SHS senior Luke Ferrario, who doubles as a Center Back on Imperial’s soccer pitch, has a larger sack total than Hartle also. Northwest’s offense can be worlds better in the Lions’ second go-around in The Valley, but there could be too much pressure on Stark’s pocket for the QB to successfully target Frazier more than 5-10 times. QB Brody Kube’s host offense will once again peck-and-poke at a Lions defense on which some of the individual performances remain shaky. SHS’s veteran QB/coaching staff know how to exploit that. Seckman does not have a dominant rusher in 2025, but it’s got a ton of RBI Hitters ready to control the football in the second half if Northwest falls way behind again. It’ll be up to the Lions’ upstart defense to hold the Jaguars to fewer than 30 points on the latter team’s home turf, buying enough time for Stark to regroup, shake off the hard hits, and try to lead Northwest pigskin to its greatest win of modern day. PREDICTION: JAGUARS 31, LIONS 27
St. Pius Lancers vs St. Vincent Indians (Class 2, District 1 Semifinals)
The Gridiron Geek certainly doesn’t want to relegate Small Schools action to a second-banana role in Week 11’s Friday Night Predictions. It so happens that we’ve been waiting for the two rematches listed above for a long time, longer than we knew that St. Vincent would emerge from its early-season doldrums to challenge St. Pius X in the Class 2 district semis. Then again, there is an argument to be made that St. Pius vs St. Vincent is this weekend’s biggest story of the local playoffs, due to the background of the matchup.
St. Pius may not be playing Jefferson, Herky, or Hillsboro in a major sport’s playoff game. In fact (unless The Geek is missing a baseball story), that grudge match may never occur, at least not in the way that we had imagined it. Jefferson’s got a rebuilding chore on its hands after R-7’s total collapse this October, giving the Blue Jays way bigger fish to fry than politics when it comes to making a statement in the 2026 playoffs. (They’ll have to “state” that they can survive more than one week of them.) Clint Freeman could step down at Herky before St. Pius X football is ever promoted to Class 3. The St. Pius Lancers have gone two full seasons without facing a JCAA opponent from closer than Dittmer.
But once The Geek thought about it, he realized that Week 11’s welcome mat for St. Vincent’s kids (and we’re 100% absolutely sure that it’s a sincere welcome mat) does bring the Hill Valley program full circle from the episode of 2023-24. Maybe the Girls Volleyball dynasty can’t fully understand … but the gridiron folks sure do! St. Vincent is only peripherally connected to the JCAA overall while being very, very connected to the tomfoolery that caused the I-55 Conference’s demise (*tear*) and replaced one of Missouri’s jewels with a slapdash, diddy-bump enterprise such as the Quad County Conference, which might as well be called the “Quick Lazy Idea to Get St. Pius Out League.” St. Vincent, otherwise noteworthy as an overachieving team in 2025, won the QCC title with three victories (!), two opposing Forfeits, a miracle pass against Perryville and a 15-point loss to Herky. Performing against St. Vincent, especially after last week’s instant classic with Valle Catholic, is a way for St. Pius to say “we’re still as good as anyone you can Quad-up.”
Tilden Watson would admonish The Geek if he didn’t add that the student experience will be the most important part. All of the accusations, hearsay, and animosity leveled at Hill Valley in the 2020s could make Perryville’s padawans think St. Pius has become an unfriendly place. Smiling faces will melt all of the JCAA’s political crap away in a heartbeat, making the students wonder just what all the fuss was about. In a sporting sense, the scrum’s quality will make the point that the two schools should still meet for games.
As for the SPX-STV matchup on the field, well, Mississippi Magazine was ready with some smart lawyerin’. We were going to ask what DC Kyle Hylton will do about St. Vincent’s devilish run-after-catch playbook, then ask what St. Vincent’s dangerously thin D-Line corps is going to do about 48 minutes of Cody Shaver playing in the contest. We would ask if St. Pius has enough experience with a close lead in a good game to play mistake-free ball in the second half, not because of last week’s lost edge over Valle but simply because the Lancers haven’t had to be in that scenario much in 2024 or 2025. The Geek was going to ask if Evan Eckrich is ready to put his INTs behind him and zip the bean with confidence.
That’s when Shaver appeared on Live Stream STL’s midweek YouTube show, and he absolutely broke up The Geek laughing while laying it all down accurately in a few words. Seriously, if Mississippi Magazine handed Hill Valley’s running back a Friday Night Predictions week to forecast in print, he’d do better in two lines than TGG does with 100!
LSSTL: “So, you had a big performance last week against #7 seed East Prairie.”
Shaver: Yeah, no. Not … they’re not very good. I guess they’re still a Varsity team and all. I just did my thing.
LSSTL: “Oh, well, haha. What do you think of Week 11’s matchup against St. Vincent?”
Shaver: We just played Valle. St. Vincent, they pass – they’re – yeah they’re just a lot like Valle. St. Vincent is going to have problems running against our run defense. Our run defense is really good. But they’re gonna pass, though, so our pass defense is the key. We have to play good pass defense to defeat St. Vincent. Yeah … that’s about it.
LSSTL: “Hmm. Got it. Do you, uhh, have anything else to add, or …?”
Shaver: …
So simple, direct, and informative at the same time! No wonder the Lancers’ 2000-yard tailback runs north-to-south so often.
What can The Geek add to Shaver’s sage analysis? Not too much, really. St. Vincent is – they pass, they’re – a lot like Valle Catholic, yeah. Except that St. Vincent isn’t as complete of a team as Valle’s wonderful 9-0 squad. St. Vincent, after all, got back to losing 42-7 to Valle Catholic after last year’s anomalous 24-7 win for the Indians. The rest and rehearsal of St. Vincent’s infinitely lucky late season trek has made the Indians into a crisp-executing offense that is almost comparable to 2023 and 2024’s run-after-catch racehorses. Yet Friday’s real key is that St. Pius’ strength at the line-of-scrimmage could tilt the field on St. Vincent’s coaches, and make them worry about the Lancers’ weapons instead of the reverse. Shaver is more dominating than any St. Vincent (or QCC) rusher. Harrison Ray is probably more talented than anyone St. Vincent’s got on the outside this year. Meanwhile, while “run defending” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind against St. Vinny’s, it will be the first thing on both coaching staffs’ minds if STV is always in third-and-long because it’s impossible to run the football, like the Indians have successfully for weeks on end. We can hope that the “shock” of facing a more athletic defense takes its toll on St. Vinny’s.
St. Pius and St. Vincent play close games. They ought to play them every year. That’s TGG being simple, direct, and informative. PREDICTION: LANCERS 24, ST. VINCENT 14
Farmington Black Knights vs Fox Warriors (Class 5, District 1 Semifinals)
This season’s boosters can’t feel too bad about whispering for head-coach firings that would’ve been mistakes. Herky’s coaches and players didn’t just seem to be at odds with each other as of 2023 and 2024 – the proof was in the pudding via Blane Boss’ own interviews and Dunklin’s tryout numbers going down. It’s the Year of our Lord 2025 in which Herky has come out with a gregarious new sophomore corps, a sharper, remodeled offense, and a program upgrade that sparked the Blackcats to a clinched winning record and a neato kickoff at Valle in Week 11. North County is another school at which a long-time HC seemed to be on the rocks after the Raiders’ rotten start to 2025. Lo and behold, Brian Jones has whipped the Bonne Terre Buccaneers into shape, beating the DeSoto Dragons handily in a district game that TGG thought would be a squeaker.
Then there’s the trek of HC Brent Tinker and the 2025 Fox Warriors, our local “Lazarus”-es who turned a potentially nightmarish year into a fun playoff bid, and possibly more than that if Arnold is prepared to fire-on-all-cylinders again this Friday. Tinker keeps the Warriors’ offense close to the vest in an era of schools turning to wide-open playbooks and 25-for-35 quarterbacks. By early October, after another series of close losses, it looked like Fox’s student-athletes were giving up on the playbook, like how Farmington’s players felt bored and dull on the gridiron before Brent Eckley was hired to replace Eric Kruppe. But in the middle of last month, Tinker’s team flipped a switch, playing better defense against a very good Parkway North offense in Week 8, upsetting the Ladue Rams in Week 9, and dominating the Poplar Bluff Mules in the Q-Finals. Now it’s time for a C5D1 semifinal scrum against Farmington, a program with similar resources that used to play Fox in the regular season. Needless to say, Fox can only win if its uptick in Weeks 8-10 isn’t a fluke.
Tinker would say that Fox had a tougher schedule than Seckman or Northwest, and that the Fox Warriors never really dropped to a level of performance that much lower than the Jaguars, Lions, or Hillsboro Hawks. That would be true, except for the Fox-Lindbergh debacle of early October in which the ailing Flyers scored their season-high of 35 points. (They since surpassed that with 44 against weak Mehlville.) It’s great that D.J. Cox and the Arnold offense has come alive against better teams, but improved tackling was a key against Poplar Bluff. Tackling will be critical against #1 seeded Farmington, too, since the Black Knights don’t have the “resources” to pair their furious no-huddle pace with a zillion long passes. They’re going to throw short and try to catch-and-run, and their defense is going to hunt turnovers just like it did at Festus. It will be NASCAR versus a Roman Army.
Fox’s other booster is that the Warriors’ backfield is finally healthy and productive all together. Cox will consume the Knights’ defense’s attention while Arnold tries to get Jude Pribish the signature performance that he’s seemingly been due to have since 2024. QB Chandler Price should be asked to run or hand-off on a handful of designed plays rather than his typical supply of nothing but option-plays, for three reasons: 1) It could get the entire Fox backfield rolling and breaking tackles, 2) It will preserve the fresh legs of whichever Warrior rusher would standardly be poised for as many as 15 carries in a row based on Farmington’s Xs and Os, so that Fox can maximize its speed in the defensive secondary via the use of two-way players, and thus keep Farmington’s aerial offense in check. Finally, 3) It will trick a Farmington defense that thinks it “knows Fox’s system,” having executed the same playbook as Fox’s current one for many years. If Farmington’s kids think their new wide-open style is so superior, they might have forgotten how effective Fox’s attack can be. Arnold’s chances to win a low-scoring semifinal go infinitely upward, given how many weapons Tinker has at his disposal to put a winning ball-control game plan together.
Farmington’s offense thinks it’s good enough to put a winning touchdown play together in :07 seconds from its own 5-yard line. You can’t blame QB Tatem Tinsley’s lineup for that belief following the Black Knights’ best season of offense since the school made the Class 4 state playoffs. Speaking of Class 4, we’re hoping to find out that Farmington’s offensive line has been performing against too much of a “holdover” schedule from the Knights’ prior era as a smaller program, and that giving Tinsley a 200+ yard team-rushing night to build his passing game on won’t be so easy against a Class 6-turned-Class 5 squad like the visiting Warriors. Farmington doesn’t want to have to throw, and throw, and throw to defeat Arnold this weekend, because there are too many swift Fox defensive backs who are feeling confident about their chances all of a sudden, ready to take a pick-six to paydirt.
We’ll say the same thing about Fox as about Herky today … BRAVO! no matter how Week 11 goes. If the Warriors don’t feel like going through a program-wide overhaul next June, they’re one solid performance (win or lose) away from saving the day. Only an embarrassing loss would put Tinker in jeopardy. PREDICTION: FARMINGTON 29, WARRIORS 21
Grandview Eagles vs Louisiana Bulldogs (Class 1, District 2 Semifinals)
The Geek is of two minds about the Grandview vs Louisiana semifinal in District 2. Louisiana is as “scrappy” of an underdog as you’ll ever find in the scrap heap. The Bulldogs can be like an old, fat, limping golfer who scrapes the ball around the course, and then you get to the 9th green and realize that they’ve hoodwinked you out of a $50 Nassau wager. For instance, despite going 3-7 so far this year, the Bulldogs nearly went 2-0 on the first two weekends against what TGG thought were a pair of superior lineups in Scotland County and Crystal City. coming up just short in a 22-19 game against the #2 seed District 1 contenders before stealing a win against the familiar Hornets. Louisiana High boasted a competitive encounter with District 2’s runner-up seed Van-Far, the “team from outer space” (actually Vandalia) who most analysts think GHS will face in Week 12’s title tilt.
Tucker Rhinehart’s defensive line hasn’t had to deal with many speedy “featured” running backs like Louisiana’s sophmore Donnell Griffith. They’ve mainly performed against ensemble casts and aerial specialists like Cooper Frisk’s Jefferson Blue Jays, and the Principia Panthers. Clark Struckoff, Herky’s senior “bell cow” touchdown scorer, only recorded six touches for 17 yards in Grandview’s win over HHS. Herculaneum passed the ball 17 times against Grandview despite averaging about 6 passes per 40 runs the rest of the season, which makes having faced Perryville’s Barrett Wheeler into the most applicable experience. If Griffith dominates the night’s action, it’ll be something the Birds of Prey haven’t seen a lot in 2025.
All in all, Louisiana feels like a legit, live underdog at Grandview this Friday. The Eagles’ coaches have been cautioning just that for weeks. But will it really be a close game?
Ehh … now it’s time for the other mind. The Grandview Eagles nearly won their conference while Louisiana was going 1-7 in the last 8 weeks of this regular season. If Grandview is really a contender for the Class 1 state playoffs, then Louisiana is not the kind of opponent that we should be concerned about Grandview losing to. Louisiana was reportedly only ahead of Veritas Christian Academy by a few points at halftime in last Friday’s quarterfinal before finally winning 42-7 – that’s a Veritas team in it’s second year of existence, one which lost badly to Priory earlier in 2025. We’re pretty sure that if Grandview faced Veritas right now, the Dittmer lads would be ahead by a score like 42-7 almost right away.
It’s time for Grandview to show it’s a contender by spanking a pretender. Louisiana probably can’t cope with a relentless rushing offense of Isaac Walker and Brock Poole rumbling behind the #1 seed’s hefty line. The only danger zone is if the Eagles start turning the ball over again, and give the Bulldogs a short field on which Griffith can plow ahead for 20 yards and a TD on six or seven plays. If the Eagles cut out the giveaways and stay patient, they’ll be ahead by 28+ at the finish. PREDICTION: EAGLES 45, LOUISIANA 14
Van-Far Indians vs Crystal City Hornets (Class 1, District 2 Semifinals)
They say that Guerilla warfare is about turning your weakness into a strength. That principle could come in handy in Week 11’s semifinals that the Dirty Dozen is not favored to win. For instance, Herculaneum’s coaches think that injuries have forced too many sophomores into every-down duty for the Blackcats, which may be true. But the Dunklin sophomore Lenny Eaves might also be Herky’s only defensive back who can keep up with a “WR1” from the Olympic Athletes of Valle Catholic. A more seasoned senior might just have the “experience” of watching Valle’s top wideout run past him for TDs the whole time, which does Herky no good. Why not roll the dice with a youngster and see what happens?
Crystal City’s in the same scenario with its whole defense instead of one position. TGG has already pleaded with Crystal’s defensive coaches to give the “hero ball” style a break and get the Hornets into a more traditional read-and-react style, since CCHS’s defensive line is so much bigger than most of the Class 1 teams trying to block it away. Instead, the Hornets are running around Bradley’s Farm like would-be heroes with greasy fingers, letting opponents slip tackles and streak downfield against a defense without conventional “backup” in pursuit. In short, the Hornets have been “getting after it,” but the all-out aggression mixed with little success has led to other teams getting TDs and point-after-it’s.
Is this the week when Crystal City goes back to a solid, conservative defense? We certainly hope not!!! Van-Far has morphed into a finesse Spread Offense team behind senior QB Kasen Christian. More importantly, the Indians are good at their latest style of football, winning 13 of their last 20 games and scoring big victories over Westran, Bowling Green, and Scotland County in that period. If the 3-6 Crystal City Hornets sit back and play “bend but don’t break defense,” Van-Far will control the ball, the game, and the scoreboard.
Go ahead and “get after it,” Crystal City – blitz away and make Mr. Christian deal with some chaos! In The Geek’s opinion, Crystal City’s best-and-only chance for an upset is to take the football away from Vandalia via fumbles and interceptions. With frosh quarterback Kolton Adams most likely at the helm again, CCHS won’t be able to manufacture 75-yard TD drives any more than it could withstand them. On a short field, the Hornets’ dangerous backfield can still advance the ball over the pylons without having to execute a rudimentary passing game. Crystal’s defensive scheme may not be a system built to last, but it’s the right kind of gambit for one night at Van-Far. PREDICTION: VAN-FAR 28, HORNETS 12
Valle Catholic Warriors vs Herculaneum Blackcats (Class 3, District 2 Semifinals)
Russell Korando was wise to use the Jefferson County Leader to hint (ever so gently) that the injured senior Keaton Reeves probably wouldn’t return as the Herculaneum Blackcats’ quarterback this postseason. It’s a crying shame that the QB who steered Herky to its first winning season in three years won’t get to take the field at Valle Catholic for Week 11’s semifinal. Dunklin still did a good job of looking like itself – which is a good thing as of 2025 – with backup-turned-starter Chase Luebbert at the helm in last weekend’s Q-Final conquest of John Burroughs. Critics would say that the Blackcats’ offense was already too imbalanced toward the running game and is now more one-dimensional with an inexperienced QB handling the bean. But much like Crystal City’s plight against Vandalia this week, Herky’s ‘weakness’ could turn into a sneaky type of weapon at Valle.
To understand why, look at Valle Catholic’s 9-0 lineup right now compared to Valle’s unbeaten teams of the past. It’s crazy that the Warriors’ roster is not as loaded as it was in years when Valle was romping to Class 1 state championships in “North Dakota State” style, behind a dozen 55-0 wins and maybe one or two 49-28’s at the end. Valle’s offense is not that stacked with NCAA-level talents these days, not as fattened with athletes such as former WR Sam Drury who could outclass each opponent’s top cornerback. This season’s Varsity Warriors don’t have an every-game touchdown ace, or even a star quarterback to speak of; two players named Sam Kuehn and Andrew Schilly are splliting snaps at QB. The Park Hills Central Rebels have a very blue-collar lineup in 2025, but it was good enough to trick Valle’s defense with a Single-Wing package to mint a 20-19 halftime lead for the Rebels this October. Valle persevered and won that one 40-20, just like the Warriors came from behind to trip the St. Pius Lancers 14-7 in Week 9. Fascinatingly, the Warriors have found themselves in more close games against more comparable rivals than ever, but HC Judd Naeger’s club just keeps winning! Naeger was 100% right when he said Valle’s kids were mentally a cut above. It’s special to go 9-0 against Valle’s slate without a stacked team. We just hope they’re at peace with it now, not yearning for the days of Class 1 and “55-0.”
The very things that make Valle worthy of so much respect in ’25 also help to give Herky a prayer this Friday. Naeger’s big defense that shut down the Festus Tigers and Seckman Jaguars four years ago wouldn’t let Herculaneum’s running back Clark Struckhoff out of the starting blocks. They’d be confident in a “Goal-Line” defense that took away what Herky loves to do, trusting some 6’3″ defensive back or another to cover Tanner Duncan on an island. Given how often RB Cody Shaver and the St. Pius Lancers were able to move the chains against Valle without the Warriors ever ignoring Harry Ray on the outside, we believe Valle isn’t punishing enough in the trenches to stack the line quite so enthusiastically in 2025. That means that if Herky can get its pads popping and the Wing-T offense humming, Valle will have to remain patient, tackle-up, and let the scrum unfold as it did in Week 9.
Make no mistake – Herculaneum has to play a perfect game to have a chance at Valle Catholic. Valle retains a deep, disciplined lineup that’s been outlasting teams, Park Hills and St. Pius being just two examples, in a year in which Herky’s coaches have worried that their second string isn’t coming along as well as their first string. Valle also boasts a game-management advantage over Herculaneum at this moment. When the Warriors are in third-and-long, they’ll be more than happy to toss the pigskin around. When the underdog Blackcats have a third-and-long and have to throw, Luebbert’s newness and Dunklin’s tiny aerial playbook will make every pass play into an adventure. Blane Boss must resist the temptation to go for every conversion and forego punting the ball. If Herky wins in an upset, it will be because Lenny Eaves and other youngsters have the game of their lives on defense, not because Herky controls the ball for the entire 48:00 without giving Valle any turns, which you can’t do anyway. Biding time is the only strategy against a powerhouse. Herculaneum should try for exactly 10 yards at a time, watch the Game Clock bleed, and then force Valle to plod methodically from one 20-yard line to the other. If you aren’t comfortable tossing the egg with your backup quarterback, that’s fine, since Herky’s not going to upset Valle through the air either, only via the relentless legs of Struckhoff.
However it turns out this weekend, 2025’s successful Herculaneum Blackcats have had what could be one of the most important seasons in the program’s long history. Left for dead with a coach who appeared to be on the chopping block, the Blackcats began to impress from Week 4 onward, sweeping Perryville’s two teams, and fighting DeSoto hard in the JCTV Bowl just two weeks after the Dragons had beaten the Hillsboro Hawks. Herky seeded #4 and then won a district quarterfinal on home turf, something that most fans didn’t anticipate at all this fall. What makes the Blackcats’ turnaround of 2025 better than the winning campaign of 2022 is that Herky’s got a promising set of underclassmen ready to manufacture an even better 2026. If you think Herky packs a punch in the trenches now, just wait until Aiden Bowling, Taylor Greenlee, and Carson Webb turn a year older.
Sometimes, a team full of sophomores and juniors that’s not ready to go all the way just yet will make a little noise in a big-time playoff game to set up the watershed next season, like a distant thunderclap before a storm. It’s not too much to hope that Herky is that team this November. It wouldn’t surprise Mississippi Magazine if the Valle-Herky and Festus-Hillsboro games are quite similar, two underdogs playing their guts out in Half #1, followed by two favorites galloping away by 9 PM. PREDICTION: VALLE 42, BLACKCATS 16
Photo Credits: Paulo Pinho Instagram, The Grind South Instagram, Herculaneum High School Facebook, St. Pius X Football Facebook, Mary Jo Koetting Nicks