Perryville 21, Hillsboro 7
The Geek made a rook’s mistake to keep Thursday’s picks from garnering shares on Facebook. Viewers like photos of Presidents playing football; the pics remind us that they’re just people, after all. When folks see Ronald Reagan snapping the pigskin as a 20-year-old, it causes them to turn off the “daily news” part of their brains and just say, “Would you look at that young fella!” But the blog’s fumble (and the opposing “scoop and score”) happened when we put a liberal, a conservative, and a populist politician together in one image. What a Football Folly! Many readers found at least *1* photo of 3 to be yucky, just going by the odds.
“Ahh, never fear,” TGG reassured himself. “Fans are just making space on their Facebook timelines for Sunday’s recap, because now we’ve got Championship Weekend all paired up, and Week 12 is when things get serious.” Then came Hillsboro’s night at Perryville in Week 11, and Mississippi Magazine will be upset for the 2024 Hillsboro Hawks if TOO MANY fans share the rundown. DeSoto’s 14-6 victory over Hillsboro in 2018 stood as the most shocking upset of Blue & White on record for well over half of a decade. Joachim Junction’s turn of glory from 7 years ago has finally been surpassed by another stunner of epic proportions.
We found out that Hillsboro High’s injury woes in the trenches got even worse between Week 7 and Week 10. Hillsboro took the field at Perryville with underclass linemen who weren’t in shape to run, and a banged-up defense that could only corral the upstart Varsity Pirates enough to keep the ball out of the Hawks’ hands for agonizing stretches of Game Clock. Perryville broke through for 4 QB sacks and snagged a Pick-6 for the coup-de-grace TD with 4:15 remaining. Friday’s 10-1 underdogs, having defeated a schedule that Preston Brown’s summer lineup could have outscored 400 to 14, tripped an HHS club that finally looked like we imagined Hillsboro would fare with a mostly-intact defense fighting in bad field position, and its scoring machine short of fuel.
The Southeast Missourian’s postgame quotes of Perryville’s kids saved The Geek from a guilt trip after Hillsboro’s loss, much the same as when Grandview’s coaches made stern warnings to the Birds of Prey about Cuba High School prior to the FIRST crazy upset covered by Mississippi Magazine this year, which helped TGG feel okay later-on about having emphasized an opponent’s long streak of futility. Perryville High’s futility has been vs Class 4’s strong riverside District, of course, and hardly in the regular season versus the Pirates’ (mostly) small-school rivals. But we were worried that Perryville’s head coach Brent Roth had used a Mississippi Magazine forecast of “19 to 44” as Bulletin Board material, and figured out from Perryville’s postgame quotes that they didn’t. (In circumstances where Perryville had used TGG’s pick that way, your reporter would’ve been referred to as “Everybody” again.) The Perryville Pirates have sailed into a whole new sea of Class 4 contention, with many more boats to rise in the tide.
If the talented Pirates want to chalk up “19-44” and “21-7” beside one another and use THAT as Bulletin Board material for Week 12’s District Championship Game at Tiger Stadium, they would have every right to do so. Quad County Conference boosters might keep relationships with Hillsboro High School, but they can’t help but think that if someone was going to stun Hillsboro’s defending east-bracket champs with an upset victory in 2024, it’s great that it was a QCC school grabbing that grail in the realigned league’s first year. Perryville, Jefferson, Grandview, Bayless, Cuba, and Herculaneum pigskin all gained upgrades at MaxPreps and other state and national ranking sites thanks to Perryville’s sizzling Cinderella run through 2 rounds of the Class 4 playoffs, and the St. Pius Lancers get a reputational boost from PHS’s triumph too, by virtue of having ranked above those programs since September at Mississippi Magazine. We made the boo-boo of referring to Grandview and Crystal City as “small” upstart bids compared to Northwest and DeSoto following a Week 9 in which all 4 teams played outstanding football. However, now that the Perryville Pirates have earned a Week 12 trip to Midmeadow Lane, such long-time “I-55” contenders look more like local big-shots.
Crystal City 36, Malden 8
If we aren’t “wheeling” into Perryville tailback Barrett Wheeler’s awesome campaign just yet, it’s because Perryville’s upset win is such a landmark for the Varsity Pirates that the history becomes more important to report on than all of a bout’s pesky details. The same can be said for Crystal City’s playoff win over Malden in Week 11, which, from a pure football POV, amounts to a routine victory for a CCHS lineup that’s won 4 of its last 5 games. It’s more timely to say that Bradley’s Farm has now won 3 out of its last 4 PLAYOFF GAMES, a blessing that hasn’t come to pass since Week 7 was considered “the playoffs” in MSHSAA’s clumsy old system. Head coach Adam Sims was written-off as having taken on a fool’s errand with Crystal City pigskin this summer, and administrators didn’t expect the Hornets to last 9 weeks before forfeiting. Now, here they are in the Sweet Sixteen. AGAIN.
Don’t overlook one particular detail of Friday’s romp, though. QB Nolan Eisenbeis, whose passing has unpredictably outshined his running over the last 2 seasons at Sunken Place, was found sprinting all over the field with the football in hand against Malden, tallying almost 100 yards on just 11 carries in Nolan’s clutch-est rushing effort since last November’s Round 2 win versus pesky Harrisburg. #12 broke the contest open with a Pick-6 in the opening half, and tossed a couple of TD passes for good measure. But even more impressive was how Eisenbeis adjusted when an injury forced Crystal into a different formation and snap-count. The Hornets had a better 2nd half than a 1st half, responding like champs after OL Hayden Westbrook took a bump on his bugle.
St. Vincent’s offense broke down often against weak Louisiana in Friday’s quarterfinals, marking ‘Sam Vincent’s Indian Churns’ as potentially having gone asleep in a Tee-Pee. Class 1, District 1’s eventual championship game does not appear to be as much of a foregone conclusion as it did weeks ago. But for now, the Crystal City Hornets must focus on one single Semifinal visitor like they have never focused before. Charleston whipped Chaffee High by an even worse margin to qualify for Week 12’s showdown at Sunken Place. CHS is working on its best season in a while, and won’t be afraid of the fast and hard running surface that’s produced so many advantages for the Hornets. Whoever buys a ticket to this Friday’s fight could be in for a hum-dinger.
Festus 35, North County 10
The authors of “The Greatest Golf Shot Ever Made” ranked a tiny Tom Watson chip shot over a 250-yard blast into the hole by Gene Sarazen, not because a hole-out from 250 yards isn’t technically better than a chip shot that goes in, but because Gene’s shot didn’t change sports history on its own the way that Watson’s did. Sarazen could have won without his shot going in. Good old “Toom” couldn’t have. That was why Kanden Bolton’s 99-yard special teams play from 2022 earned our award for a county Play of the Year during a season filled with drama on kick and punt returns as usual. It was the play that smote Herculaneum. Crystal may not have finished an unbeaten season, or at least a *disputedly* unbeaten season, without Kanden’s big bolt.
Trey Lacey’s touchdown on a Hail Mary was THE PLAY of Week 11. It just can’t be the Play of the Year because Plays of the Year happen in close contests. 2024’s Festus Varsity Football Tigers are getting way too good to be found playing in many of those.
North County’s offense worked well between the 20s in Friday’s semifinal game, and bogged down against yet another strength of the FHS defense this year – a brick wall of Red Zone resistance. Bonne Terre at least thought it had stopped the bleeding when it kicked a field goal to make the score 21-3, following the tremendous 1st half from sophomore Kamden Yates that helped build a substantial lead on North County once again. NCHS had carefully managed the Game Clock to leave less than :30 for Essien Smith’s offense to respond with any kind of a drive. But that couldn’t stop the most explosive host lineup FHS has ever seen.
Yates capped his shining hour with a scampering 15-yard rush to put Festus High in plus-territory with :06 to go in Quarter 2. The Tigers got Lacey and 2 other receivers in a “bunch” formation running an All-Streaks (that’s a technical playbook term, but they’re doing what it sounds like they’re doing). Essien wasted no time getting a safe-yet-soaring pass into the north corner of the end zone, where if one of North County’s opposing defensive backs caught it, they couldn’t try to return the INT for a touchdown.
It didn’t look like ANYBODY would catch it. The jump-ball was on a careening vector out-of-bounds, and Lacey had to almost fully rotate to get a good look at it with multiple North County defenders in his path. Lacey turned, twisted, leaped, and caught Smith’s Hail Mary with 2 hands, backpedaling his feet down in genuine “Pat Tilley” fashion while getting plowed out-of-bounds by another NCHS defender. A referee ran to the pylon, waited a moment, and threw up his arms for a touchdown as Tiger Stadium erupted.
Smith and Lacey’s epic TD dropped an anchor on the Raiders. They were docked for good. The latter half turned into a trash-time circus that must have disappointed the 3+ TV and radio broadcasters who wound up at Midmeadow Lane for 7 PM’s kickoff. By 8 PM, they were speechless. But make no mistake, there is JOY in Mudville. The Festus Tigers have a winnable route to Week 14.
Hermann 26, St. Pius 19
Festonians can’t have everything. St. Pius X appeared to be big, strong, and fast enough to take down #1 seeded Hermann on hostile turf Friday, and give the Tri-Cities (or at least the *incorporated* Tri-Cities) a perfect 3-0 record in Week 11’s elimination games. Confidence wasn’t an issue, either, as the Varsity Lancers confidently took the gridiron, and later the lead, in spite of the atmosphere at HHS rivaling one of Cuba’s (brief) win streaks at the latter school’s rowdy stadium since 2023. But the one element Frank Ray’s lineup is still missing for the time being is experience, and the playoff poise that comes with it. Week 11’s Lancers simply fumbled the game away, turning the rock over even more often than in September’s slippery loss at Fort Zumwalt. It was evident that the #4 seed St. Pius Lancers did their best to avoid facing DE Daeden Hopkins man-on-man, rushing for positive gains on 1st down, and crafting a superior stat-line for visiting QB Danny DeGeare compared to a shaky Henry Allenbach of Hermann High. Yet the Lancers were suffering from bad blocks and Crisco fingers, as Hopkins eventually sacked DeGeare, recovering one of Hermann’s 3 gobbled opponent’s fumbles in the contest. SPX held the scoreboard at 12-19 for a long bit after Hermann’s first moments of mojo, and still another fumble late in the 4th quarter gave Friday’s favorites a too-short field, and shortly an “insurance TD” that turned into a winner. HHS scored 26 points without a single tailback netting close to 50 yards.
The St. Pius Varsity squad will not be a seasoned, veteran group of seniors and juniors for a while yet. But the Lancers are bound to grow so much by 2025 and 2026 that we think they might just be the favorite against a squad like Hermann ’24 by next season, even if Hermann keeps Hermann-ing with hot debuts, hard won victories over Class 4, and (of course) a really good pass rush. This fall’s St. Pius Lancers went 4-3 against MSHSAA opponents in the regular season, and went on a 4-1 run following the autumn solstice. The upcoming season will be DeGeare’s senior campaign, and we’re especially keen to see what Hill Valley’s reorganized offensive line can accomplish with a full training camp as an established group. There’s also 2 sophomore QBs coming up the pike.
Bowling Green 60, Jefferson 12
We’re not so bummed out that Jefferson was blown-out this weekend, because it was bound to happen at some point when going up against a very tough bracket with a defense that played its best ball in September. Nevertheless, JHS’s Matt Atley joins the coaches who must reevaluate things, lest they get themselves reevaluated by somebody else in the early days of 2025. Bowling Green uses the same playbook that Jefferson High used to run and which every last one of Principal Rouggly’s coaches should know by heart. Allowing 7 touchdowns right away was a sign of a team short on preparation, giving QB Cooper Frisk no fair opportunity to answer a landslide of opposing points. Blue Jay Way must retool in the trenches to make any noise soon.
Seckman 34, Oakville 7
Mississippi Magazine would have rather seen Seckman win by another meek final score than have QB Brody Kube have another off-night, and see Seckman win 51-0 anyway on a bunch of fumble and interception returns. Lucky enough, the 10-0 Jaguars were able to produce a “pretty” final score and a solid, foundational night for their gunslinger too. Kube was accurate and thorough in distributing the bean as Imperial’s rusher Brady Ambrose galloped for another massive yardage total of 202 on 21 carries.
Meanwhile, the Jackson Indians had to deal with Lindbergh for at least 36:00 of tight pigskin this weekend, which could be a sign of hope going into a matchup that Seckman has traditionally been hapless to do anything with at all. Imperial must reassure itself that of all the years Jackson would be poised to overrun an outmatched Seckman team, 2024 doesn’t appear to be one of them. Should the Jags have a good game in Week 12, win or lose, it will be what we’ve all been hoping for, but it’s important to state that it wouldn’t be a miracle – in fact Jackson’s easy Ws over Seckman have been unnaturally easy. if the Seckman Blocks of Granite turn into Rock Creek Spillway in another awful 1st half, we’ll know for 100% sure that SHS has a mental hangup vs the Injuns.