The St. Pius Lancers have never had this experience before, and that goes double for the blog that you’re reading. The Gridiron Geek looked over Class 2’s state hopefuls prior to the 2024 playoffs, but we didn’t boast a school berthed in the Elite Eight. It was an academic exercise, only spiced up a little bit by Missouri’s Top 10 voters trying to wish-cast Lamar out of the picture. The Lamar Tigers won last year’s C2 state title with a 28-25 win over Fair Grove.
Lamar is back in the state postseason field this year. Scarier yet for the teams in the Class 2 bracket is that Blair Oaks is riding on a district championship in C2 instead of Class 3, which the Falcons won in 2024 without being able to defend their title after the drop. Blair Oaks has lost some enrollment while remaining very tough on the gridiron. However, there’s still good news in the Class 2 “draw” for a handful of teams, and the Lancers are among them.
Class 2 Quarterfinal Matchups (Saturday, Nov. 22)
Montgomery County Wildcats at St. Pius X Lancers
Mid-Buchanan Dragons at Monroe City Panthers
^ Winners will meet in State Semifinals on 11/29
Summit Eagles at Blair Oaks Falcons
Lamar Tigers at Liberty Eagles
^ Winners will meet in State Semifinals on 11/29
Lamar, Blair Oaks, and Liberty are all in the right-hand half of 2025’s bracket. They’ll have to beat each other up for a while – until December in fact. In the meanwhile, the “eastern” side of the field (which involves a lot more than riverside teams) appears strikingly even-handed and hard to predict. Saturday’s Montgomery County at St. Pius X quarterfinal is paired with a confusing matchup between visiting Mid-Buchanan and host Monroe City, for which Mid-Buchanan has the unbeaten record while having given up a worrisome nine TDs in district games. MCHS’s only loss so far was to Valle Catholic. In layman’s terms, Mid-Buchanan could turn out to be either a “Gateway STEM” or a “Platte County” from last year’s playoffs as 2025 goes forward. Prognosticators shouldn’t be shocked if defense becomes a liability for the 11-0 Dragons, but they could also turn out to be pretty darn good.
Scouting the Montgomery County Wildcats for this Saturday is fun because St. Pius can play two different styles of offense this year. Coaches always say “Let’s just focus on us,” which for a lot of High School teams, is a way of saying “We’re gonna do what we know how to do.” Because the Lancers can spread the field around QB Evan Eckrich, or feed RB Cody Shaver out of the Wishbone, an opponent’s style means everything to the game plan.
Hill Valley will host a program from just to the east of Columbia this Saturday. Montgomery County’s players are used to taking long road trips to visit the Louisiana Bulldogs and other familiar opponents. Conversely, the Wildcats’ first trip in a month’s time could remind MCHS of the drama at Wright City last time District 2’s winners played away from home. Montgomery County won a 26-20 OT tilt over a 7-4 brand that had clobbered Van-Far 55-26 in Week 7.
Montgomery County senior QB Adrian Combs is a swashbuckler who reminds TGG of Crystal City’s former signal-caller Nolan Eisenbeis, or Titus McGee of the 2024 Penney Hornets. He looks like he’s making it up as he goes along occasionally. There’s a lot of Combs’ scrambling, running, and flinging behind MCHS’s 9-2 overall record. Jackson Benney is another quick, gifted quarterback whom the Wildcats have toiling at RB this season, almost like a Farmington Black Knights apprentice QB under former HC Eric Kruppe. But the Wildcats play a modern “Saturday” style of offense out of the NCAA’s ubiquitous Shotgun-Spread. Rural teams can do it as well as anyone these days. How fitting that St. Pius will host such an opponent on a Saturday.
St. Pius X looks like a home-field favorite over Montgomery County, thanks to the Lancers’ own impressive string of late-season performances. MCHS was unable to move the ball very much on Monroe City in a regular-season game. Valle, which scored six times against Monroe City in a 43-22 victory, couldn’t score more than twice on St. Pius. While we’re throwing early-year and late-year games in the same analytical pile here (never a great idea), consider that MCHS hasn’t been tested by any solid teams outside of Wright City and Vandalia in the past two months. The Wildcats may get an advantage from being so fresh after an easy walk through District 2’s sadsacks, or they could be stunned by the speed of Saturday’s Q-Final.
Mississippi Magazine suspects that Saturday’s 1 o’ clock quarterfinal will be a low-scoring one. Both offenses could have punishing problems against the other team’s defense at Hill Valley, and not just because of the long, wavy grass. The St. Pius defense has become stouter with the falling of the leaves, having one shaky night against St. Vincent while holding Valle and Caruthersville to four combined touchdowns in eight quarters. Montgomery County likes to run Tipton Cardinals-style QB Sweeps right to the hashes, which we feel Danny DeGeare’s defense can stuff just as readily as Luke “Danhausen” Holdinghausen’s defense at Bradley’s Farm in November 2023. Meanwhile, the Wildcats appear to have hefty size and strength in the trenches to go with fine pursuit on opposing run plays. The Lancers may have to use their own “NCAA” offense to open up and score TDs. They can’t rely on only the run.
If the St. Pius Lancers win Week 13’s State Q-Final, will they go on to face a superior 12-0 Mid-Buchanan team, or a Monroe City squad that turned out lucky when Mid-Buchanan wasn’t all it was cracked up to be? Monroe City will put up a fierce resistance to Mid-Buchanan’s high-powered attack, having beaten our local visitor Montgomery County 32-8 early this season. A win over a District champion of any weight class never looks bad on a resume. But it could also be Mid-Buchanan’s year … because the defense can be forgiven for its porous play in District 8. The Dragons’ opposition was really good, especially for the first three rounds of the playoffs. The program from Faucett, Missouri dripped into a district draw that placed MBHS up against the 8-3 Cardinals of Lawson High right away, followed by a title game against the 7-5 Cameron Dragons (sorry for the confusion from so many “Cardinals” and “Dragons”) who do battle against Class 4 contenders during the season as if they’re trying to be Lamar or something. From the point of view of MBHS’s strength of opposition, surviving such a challenge from the opening rounds – with 15 touchdowns scored! – makes Mid-Buchanan an Elite Eight favorite.
If Lamar and Blair Oaks meet as planned in the Class 2 semifinals, will the reigning (and un-defending) state champions of Class 3 have a natural edge over the reigning (and defending) state champs of C2? Maybe, but The Geek prefers tough schedules to great W/L records, and it’s strange that Lamar is still facing a tougher slate than Blair Oaks despite the far-and-wide reputation of the Blair Oaks Falcons. The 11-0 Falcons beat the diminished Lutheran North Crusaders of 2025 back in Week 2, but that was their toughest matchup of the year until Week 12, when Blair Oaks was nearly knocked out by Centralia in an 11-point game. Lamar’s regular-season schedule had four Class 4 opponents and four Class 3 opponents, and not simply for the “experience.” Lamar added to its rich dynasty by defeating Seneca 29-28 on Senior Night, then winning another district crown in a breeze.
Summit Christian Academy is a Cinderella state bid at 5-6 overall, at least giving Blair Oaks an easier path to the semis than Lamar.
The District 1-2-7-8 side of the bracket is full of fun matchups that give all four teams a chance to go 2-0. Whoever goes on to the 2025 Show-Me Bowl will get another “chance” well before December’s first weekend … they’ll get the chance to hope Districts 3-4-5-6 wear each other down a little bit.
MHSHAA CLASS 2 STATE PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS:
RIGHT SIDE FINALIST: LAMAR TIGERS
LEFT SIDE FINALIST: MID-BUCHANAN DRAGONSÂ Â
SHOW-ME BOWL: LAMAR DEFEATS MID-BUCHANAN