Mississippi Magazine extends an apology to John Norton of Lancer Nation, who tried to leave an important on-site comment under the St. Pius-Monroe City postgame news flash so as to relay a touching story from the Class 2 State Q-Finals. Festus businessman Jud Mehler’s tragic and unexpected passing on November 21 has left the youngster Cullen Mehler and his family in grief at a time when the St. Pius X community is distracted by the football team’s success. but that didn’t stop the Varsity Lancers or their parents from doing one beautiful thing after another for the padawan. Mehler was carried off the field in a special “#38” jersey after the Lancers’ landmark Q-Final win of Week 13. The Gridiron Geek gives his sincerest condolences to the Mehlers and to all Lancer families impacted by the tragedy. Follow this link to go to the Go Fund Me page for donating to Cullen’s folks.
Links to pay for a local family’s expenses are better than any paywall ever found on the web. Paywalls, paywalls, and more paywalls are shutting fans down as they try to learn more about Blair Oaks, the St. Pius Lancers’ opponent in the Class 2 Show-Me Bowl in St. Joseph this Saturday. The 13-0 Blair Oaks Falcons’ recaps are kept under lock-and-key by the Jefferson City News Tribune.
Blair Oaks will be staking a claim as Missouri’s next great dynasty if it beats St. Pius in the 2025 Show-Me Bowl. But it could also be a secret dynasty if Jefferson City’s media doesn’t follow the Leader by making more content free. Thankfully, there’s a set of live reporters who continue to post MSHSAA playoff scores, stories, and highlights on X.
Jefferson City News Tribune sports writer Greg Jackson hasn’t made his X feed into a Pay-Per-Read yet (we’re waiting). His tweets from the Blair Oaks-Liberty semifinal last week captured the top story of the game, which wasn’t necessarily QB Tyler Bax’s return from a minor concussion to throw four TD passes against the Eagles, but rather the Blair Oaks defense making such a statement of a stand that Liberty gained less than 90 yards in the whole contest, even – according to Jackson – after garbage-time arrived in Quarter 4.
Teams are also getting around the MSHSAA-TV paywall by posting video reels of their playoff wins. Blair Oaks leaves itself open to a lot of St. Pius scouting by putting this 40:00 “Condensed Game” of Week 14’s win on YouTube, but it’s excellent, and it showcases that punishing defense of the Falcons every bit as much as Bax’s bazooka of an arm.
Jon Lieber of KRGC-13 quoted Blair Oaks head coach Ted “Lasso” LaPage saying that the defending-not-defending state champions were thrilled to play in a cold, rainy slop-fest. Perhaps it’s a ray of sunshine – literally – for Blair Oaks’ opponent that Saturday’s forecast is kinder than Week 14’s as of this midweek, predicting only a cloudy Show-Me Bowl.
Mad props to Russell Korando and the Jefferson County Leader for keeping their Varsity Football content free-of-charge. Korando’s recap of the Monroe City classic wasn’t long on editorial, opting to let the win and the history speak for St. Pius X. Lancers head coach Frank Ray spoke to the Leader, too, telling Korando a few things that were more surprising to hear than others. For instance, we already know that the Lancers have chips on their shoulders from the whole sports program’s treatment by JCAA administrators in 2024, that they’re feeding off of those who may be cheering against them now. What TGG didn’t expect was for Coach Ray to confess to yelling at quarterback Evan Eckrich “all year,” challenging him by barking “you’re not good enough” early in the Monroe City contest. The coach knows that his players just love to prove people wrong – even himself!
Korando points out that senior RB Brody Ervin has 500+ rushing yards on the year to go with Cody Shaver’s 2900, not easy to do when a phenom is hogging so many carries. Ervin caught and ran with the most spectacular TD pass of the Monroe City semifinal. For Eckrich and his blockers, an Athlete of the Week award ought to keep a critical coach quiet.
Guest recapper Scotty Lada of Live Stream STL (or at least that’s what Ray Halbrook calls him – the only “Scott Lada” The Geek can find on the internet raises canines in Colorado) offers high praise for both teams in the east-west seminal scrum, echoing the popular notion that it was too bad either one of the sides had to lose. But it’s not time to keep looking back at the semifinals – there’s a state championship contest to play this weekend. Seven of them, in fact, counting the 8-Man programs! Eckrich tells Halbrook later in the video that the Lancers are focused on stopping the running plays of Blair Oaks in Week 15, even though Bax and a gang of his Falcons’ wide receivers combine for a crack aerial game in any weather. It’s most likely that Coach Ray and SPX defensive coordinator Kyle Hylton want to stuff the run and force passes, trying to make Blair Oaks into a one-dimensional offense.
KSDK is posting (and airing on TV) a ton of videos on the St. Pius Lancers’ state title bid! Here’s the most recent one:
If you search “KSDK St. Pius” on YouTube, you’ll see a bunch of the Lancers’ videos on Channel Five – and they’re all different! Don’t be tricked, however, by the video from four years ago labeled “St. Mary’s and St. Pius X advance to Class 3 championship game.” That’s of course a reference to the other St. Pius X who visited Hill Valley this season.
There’s no way Manny Ellis of Cardinal Ritter can pass Shaver for the STL Metro rushing crown now, which has the makings of another KDSK feature later in December.
Did we mention that this year’s Show-Me Bowl has a dozen 11-Man teams competing, as usual? Lee’s Summit is making a bid against last year’s Class 6 runner-up Nixa in a story that could inspire a Cinderella team like St. Pius of Festus. The Kansas City Star has a free rundown on the Lee’s Summit comeback that knocked Jackson out of the ’25 playoffs, plus the same scroll comes with another recap – if not the most accurate or fair recap – of the Festus Tigers and Kearney Bulldogs’ Class 4 semifinal showdown at Tiger Stadium.
The KC newspaper lies through its teeth about that semifinal, by the way. Kearney, it says, had its biggest challenge last Saturday “busing through the snow for four hours” (from a JeffCo motel?!) and then showed up to “clobber” FHS with an easy routine win. One day, our schools will conquer the best of the Kansas City area, and you’ll know it because the Kansas City Star writes a story to the effect of “Kearney was the Better Candidate, Held Back by Headwinds.” But the Dirty Dozen’s fans can’t have everything … at least not yet.
Photo Credits: St. Pius X Football Facebook, Lee’s Summit Tigers HUDL, Blair Oaks Falcons HUDL