St. Pius 42, Grandview 7
“Friday’s final score is deceiving,” wrote the country sportswriter. The Geek doesn’t want to make anyone think that St. Pius, performing without its suspended head coach Frank Ray in the most important playoff game of his tenure so far, was lucky to defeat Grandview by 5 TDs, though winning a good game with elimination on the line always needs a dose of luck. To describe St. Pius’ exciting Q-Final win over GHS as merely a lopsided scrum would do both schools injustice. Grandview did make a strong bid for the upset, and SPX was great in holding it off.
Hill Valley didn’t win a snoozer. SPX won an anxious contest, one that just happened to be snooze-worthy at the start and the finish. It was Grandview, not St. Pius, that got WAY too conservative early in Week 10’s visit, running plays that only ever seemed designed to gain 10 yards on 4 downs instead of stretching the field and testing SPX’s inexperience, the way that QB Brendan Martin was allowed to test Crystal City’s dicey defensive-backfield coverage last weekend. Grandview ran up-the-middle on long down and distance, and appeared to be sleepwalking through the contest as St. Pius quarterback Danny DeGeare started to find daylight again. DeGeare made a beautiful option-fake and ran doggedly up the right hash-mark (if you can do it at Baylor, YOU CAN DO IT ANYWHERE) for an 85-yard touchdown that nearly broke the scoreboard as far as Grandview was concerned. 14 points was like 28 points for St. Pius X unless Grandview got its act together, fast, yet the promising thing about GHS Football remains that the Birds of Prey never quit, even when trailing by a prohibitive deficit on “I-55” rival turf. Grandview drove with time expiring in the 1st half, trying to tighten a St. Pius lead that had grown to 21-0 by then. Thus began a series of dramatic, pivotal plays that would decide Friday’s fracas, with haymakers landed both ways until GHS finally missed too many chances.
First off, Martin tried going for the gusto, making a “keep-read” on a 3rd-and-1 Red Zone snap that should only have read, “First down, Eagles” on the box score. St. Pius has developed lean, mean pursuit in the front-7. Linebackers cornered Martin well behind the LOS for a big loss. Like a champ, Grandview High’s celebrated QB came back with a scramble and a TD toss on the 4th down. Half #1 ended with a noble 21-7 tally.
The #5 seed lived large on defense beginning the 3rd quarter, stuffing a DeGeare option play and following that up with a sack. Grandview took the ball at midfield and drove toward the goal line, daring to make a barnburner out of it with about 18:00 to go. But on a 4th-and-1 close to the St. Pius 10-yard line, Isaac Walker seemed to be bound by Jason Kimminau’s playbook to run over Left Guard, even though there was daylight to the right. That vicious Lancer defense pounced on the Eagles’ errant vector in blocking, and corralled Walker for a turnover on 4 downs.
It was DeGeare’s turn to take over again, this time leading a St. Pius surge that would win the battle. Hill Valley’s late-bloomer of a helmsman dashed off a nifty pass to the near boundary out of a Spread formation, then got his Lancers back into a Triple-Option look and took Grandview’s defense to town. The Eagles gang-tackled the wrong rusher while DeGeare winged expertly to the other sideline, dodging potential tacklers and rumbling all the way to the opposing 30. St. Pius didn’t score on that possession, but the Lancers were tilting the gridiron, and RB Justin Lehn subsequently ripped a pair of TD runs that totaled close to 100 yards, showing off the other side of SPX’s 2-headed monster in the ground game.
That was that. St. Pius goes on to visit #1 Hermann in a game that the Lancers’ difficult schedule of 2024 has more than prepared them for. Grandview, in The Geek’s opinion, must take a hard look at its playbook and tactics before it maroons another effective set of seniors with a game-plan that probably wasn’t going to turn the trick even if Martin’s offense performed flawlessly. People can always debate whether a program’s coach gave their team best-chances to win, but Grandview’s staid approach to Week 10 conceded too much before the kickoff.
North County 31, DeSoto 21
The DeSoto Dragons put on another show in the opening half at Bonne Terre, building a gutsy 14-7 lead in the 2nd quarter, and wreaking havoc on special teams to take possessions away from North County. The depth-issue that HC Russ Schmidt referred to after DeSoto’s loss to Hillsboro jumped up to punish DeSoto’s relatively thin defense in Week 10, as the North County Raiders executed 2 scoring drives and a nice 40-yard field goal to rack up the night’s decisive 10-point lead. But in a mark of leadership and courage, DeSoto quarterback Austin Missey finished a pivotal season-performance by leading Friday’s tired Dragons to a potential 2:00 comeback, until a “Missouri-Nebraska”-style deflection in the end zone resulted in North County’s game-sealing INT. DeSoto not only made a statement by almost winning, it made NCHS look vulnerable once again.
Oakville 28, Northwest 7
Aww heck. People always say that a QB controversy means you don’t really have a quarterback. In Northwest-Cedar Hill’s case, the opposite is plainly true. There was a QB debate at the beginning of 2024 because, well, Northwest had 2 solid, HEALTHY quarterbacks. On Friday night against Oakville, the Lions may not have had a sturdy signal-caller in the mix. Cohenn Stark was revealed to be ailing with an ankle injury, perhaps even a ligament or hamstring issue to boot (excuse the pun), going into Week 10’s winner-take-all rematch. However, we’ve got a suspicion that Connor Viehland still wasn’t feeling 100%, as NHS did nothing but leave an immobilized Stark to take snaps in the loss.
When the emotions are less raw, The Geek hopes Northwest boosters will agree with him that Friday’s score, tight as it may have been in the early-going, will turn into a blessing-in-disguise for Cedar Hill in the big picture. NOT, of course, for any traditional football-fan reason. The prospect of Northwest winning a seminal playoff game, and then going on to face Seckman in another rematch, would have given the Lions an amazing chance to weigh themselves as a Suburban League contender, and showed them what week-to-week improvement can do for their scoreboards. But if Stark and his backup are BOTH ailing with injuries, the best deal is for NHS to move into the offseason now, while protecting their quarterback-thru-2026 with a doctor’s diagnosis and rehab. Recall that a 5-4 season is better than we had dreamed.
Hillsboro 55, Sikeston 22
Same syndrome for the Hillsboro Hawks since the leaves turned. Fine offense, shaky defense. The Gridiron Geek predicted the opposite scenario for Hillsboro going into next Friday’s semifinals, and feels dumb about it and everything, but it’s consolation that for anyone outside of Jefferson County to have forecasted Leon Hall’s fall would’ve been impossible. Anyone who was just looking at scores and rosters would have said, “Well, with Preston Brown sidelined, Hillsboro will rely on defense and win by low-scoring margins.” Mississippi Magazine thought so too, and we’re actually watching! After Weeks 7-10, if you told an outsider “Preston Brown is 100%, but every linebacker got the measles,” they’d believe it.
Jefferson 35, Priory 13
Jefferson smacks its Week 10 prediction right on the head with a 22-point victory, and moves into a contest against Bowling Green that should not be any more naturally-lopsided than St. Pius X’s underdog trip to Hermann. There is a solid chance that one-or-the-other Class 2 underdog from Jeff County will upset Hermann or Bowling Green and advance to Round 3…there just isn’t much chance of BOTH schools pulling it off.
St. Genevieve 43, Herculaneum 20
Herky showed its sharpest sign of a PULSE on offense (Hallelujah) all season in defeat at St. Gen. One thing you can say in favor of whichever new coach comes in is that Herky’s success was driven by sophomores in 2023’s postseason. There will be many senior studs to build around.
Lindbergh 35, Fox 0
Back to the drawing board for Fox High, in a rebuilt and (now) flood-proofed coaches’ room. The Geek’s sunny prediction of a close call at Lindbergh didn’t take into account that as much as QB Chandler Price has shown athletically, he’s still far behind the curve of a successful option-QB in experience. Another summer will solve that for Mr. Price, so let’s just hope Fox starts and ends with the same backfield in ’25.
Perryville 24, Windsor 8
TGG has a hard time believing Windsor’s lineup was healthy in Week 10’s elimination. Then again, Windsor’s form from week to week was all over the map in 2024. Lee Freeman did come WAY closer to a huge upset (vs North County) than Russ Schmidt in his first year at DeSoto.