If you’re looking for proof that the Herky Blackcats are vying to get to Week 12, look no further than Dunklin’s recent exploits on the road. Herculaneum got over its bugaboo at Bonners Ferry Cuba High School this midseason, one week after the impressive rushing performance at St. Vincent in which the burly Blackcats blocked and ran for nearly 200 yards and 5 YPC in defeat to the 7-1 Indians. On Saturday, QB Conor Hedrick and the River Flat Cats endured a drama of rare anxiety to win Quarter 4 and reach a milestone.
Herculaneum’s student-athletes returned to Perryville under more pressure than they had been under as an underdog in Week 4. HHS came into this Saturday’s game riding a three-game winning streak, with a chance to go growling-and-hissing into next week’s JCTV Bowl against DeSoto and the Week 10-11 playoff trek. Four victories in a row amounts to Herky’s biggest triumph on the gridiron since 2021, when the Cats won their last three games of the regular season before tripping Roosevelt in a Q-Final.
Perryville has dropped one enrollment class to C3 recently, and the Pirates got off to a shaky start this year. Final-score analytics alone indicated that Herky should be favored at PHS this weekend. However, the Pirates have also had a way of erasing such analysis with home-field surprises, especially against Jefferson County’s schools. You lose track of how many times that the Perryville Pirates looked like the underdog and still shook up our Small Schools, sometimes on Thursdays and Saturdays. Homecoming Game dates like Saturday’s soiree can serve to make the Perryville Pirates more dangerous, not less!
Hedrick’s offense took Saturday’s sod with the intent to forget about that “PHS” logo and its conference history, while recalling that 2026’s Perryville club has weaknesses to attack. The Blackcats didn’t take long to respond after Perryville took an early 7-0 lead, scoring twice unanswered by Quarter 2’s first minute, taking a 14-7 lead on Hedrick’s massive cut-back carry for a 79-yard TD.
Perryville scored again to deadlock the bout 14-14 at halftime. Herky made a critical Red Zone stand following a turnover early in the third quarter, but overall, the frame was boring until it erupted in fireworks about halfway through. QB Dezmen Hampson found Perryville’s sophomore WR on a 33-yard catch, fake, and run that put the Pirates ahead 21-14. Herculaneum, as it had done all game, responded by methodically moving the bean, going into a Flexbone look and handing to utility man Chase Luebbert. Herculaneum needed only a few more snaps to create the tying touchdown on RB Luke Smith’s short scamper.
But when what appeared to be Aaron “Mandalorian” Mardirosian’s first QB sack of the year was marred by one of the third quarter’s ticky-tack flags, it was a sign that Flappy & Pitchwell were about to play a role in the finish of a corker. The Blackcats, with only a few minutes to play in Quarter 4, converted a goal-to-go turn when Luebbert crossed the line easily on a two-yard rush to give Herky a 27-21 lead and the potential comeback win of a five-year span in Blackcat Nation. But Luebbert was the hero and the goat at the same moment – having watched too many feel-good football movies like “The Waterboy” over the years, Herky’s senior tossed the ball over the goalposts in celebration. Uh-oh. Friday Night Lights – or Saturday Afternoon Sunshine – is a place where that gets flagged.
Herky’s junior PK Connor Pajda had to deal with a labored hold and a fierce opposing rush on the 35-yard extra-point try that had resulted from Leubbert’s overzealous penalty. (Lou Holtz would gripe that Herky was given an Enthusiasm Penalty, having once said, “You don’t want emotions on the field, don’t keep score – play for an hour and quit.”) Pajda pulled the kick wide, leaving the Blackcats ahead perilously in Perryville. The Pirates know how to succeed in one-score games with the clock running down. Naturally, they prefer a 6-point deficit to a 7-point deficit. Had Herculaneum left itself open to a heartbreaking loss?
Nope! Dunklin took advantage when Perryville’s receivers whiffed on potential catches at midfield, forcing the talented Hampson to speed up his timing too much. The final gasp, thrown toward the Herky 40-yard line over half of a dozen outstretched hands from Herky’s mega-motor defensive front, fell harmlessly incomplete along the sidelines. HHS has done it! It’s a four-game streak!
It’s not Jefferson that’s the sister team to Hillsboro’s powerhouse this season, it’s the Herky Blackcats. Smith and Mardirosian’s key presence in the backfield adds a distinct Class of 2028 theme to a skill corps that’s decked out with five rushers averaging 7+ yards per carry, and as many as four effective receivers on the field at any time. Herky looks more and more like one of Bill Sucharski’s better lineups from the other HHS, having developed so many weapons to use in many roles that opponents are left confused.
How do the Varsity Blackcats parlay their four-game streak into a special fall? To a great extent, that’s already happened. Herky, unless the Blackcats somehow lose to DeSoto in Week 9 and the deteriorating Lutheran South Lancers in Week 10, is bound for its third winning season of the decade. The Cats have recorded at least five wins for the fifth time since 2021, a sign that the doldrums of prior eras are over at Blackcat Drive. While a likely meeting with the St. Clair Bulldogs in Week 11 will still cast the Blackcats as underdogs, St. Clair’s loss to 2026’s pedestrian North County Raiders in Week 8 makes The Geek surmise that 6-2 St. Clair is mortal, and potentially beatable by a superb ball-control team. Know anyone like that? Maybe, those guys in Black & Red.
Photo Credits: Herculaneum High School Facebook, Perryville Pirate Football Facebook