Herculaneum (6-4) kept Lutheran South’s offense one dimensional and ran away with a 49-7 home victory in the first round of the Class 3 District 2 tournament on Oct. 30.
Lancer QB Brody Slinkard completed 20 passes for 245 yards and their only TD in the fourth quarter after the Blackcats had built a lead large enough (35 points) to start the running clock.
Despite the South (2-8) passing yards, Slinkard was harassed by the Herky defensive unit led by Lucas Mercille, Taylor Greenlee, Gavin Feltmann and Mason Harris.
“It was a total team effort on both sides of the ball and special teams,” Herculaneum head coach Blane Boss said. “We played pretty well on defense. On offense, we moved the ball fine. Lutheran South played a pretty good game. They only had a couple penalties and held us from long runs. Offensively, they kept the chains moving. We were expected to win, and sometimes those are the games that don’t go perfectly for you.”
Aaron Mardirosian and Chase Luebbert scored two TDs, and Conor Hedrick had a TD for the Blackcats. Kicker Conner Pajda made six of seven PATs; Herky made a two-point conversion after one TD.
Herculaneum is at St. Clair (6-3) in the district semifinals at 7 p.m. on Friday. The Bulldogs compete in the Four Rivers Conference and lost their two games prior to districts.
“Looking at the two offenses, it could be high scoring, or not,” Boss said about the game’s uncertainty. “You never know what’s going to happen on Friday night. It will come down to who’s plus-minus on the turnovers. Their offense is one of the better ones we’ve seen on our schedule.”
Dragons advance to semis
De Soto snapped an 11-game losing streak against North County with a 34-27 win over the Raiders in Bonne Terre on Oct. 30 in the first round of the Class 4 District 1 tournament.
The Dragons are seeded fifth in the district and improved to 6-4. Their last win over North County was in 2019. The Raiders are in the Mississippi Area Football Conference with De Soto, Festus, Hillsboro and Windsor. North County (No. 4, 6-4) had beaten the Dragons in their previous four district meetings, and 35-22 on Sept. 11.
De Soto head coach Russ Schmidt said he felt his team building toward the district road upset after the Dragons beat Herculaneum (Quad County Conference) 17-14 the week before. Schmidt is also the school’s activities director.
“We win against Herky, and it felt like a loss because we could have played better,” Schmidt said. “The challenge was preparation, film study and allowing yourself to be coached. By Wednesday (Oct. 28), I was confident we could go down (to Bonne Terre) and win a football game.”
The Dragons jumped out to a 13-0 lead and maintained the lead throughout the game. In the third quarter, De Soto drove the ball for more than eight minutes and converted four times on fourth down before junior quarterback Cannon Kisner scored a touchdown and then passed to Damian Pogue for the two-point conversion. Kisner has set several school offensive records in rushing and scoring and still has a year-plus to play.
Senior defensive lineman Levi Huck has more than 100 tackles this year, and after Kisner scored in the third, he recovered a North County fumble close to the Dragon goal line. Huck also had a sack in the quarter. In his career, Huck has played all positions on the OL, DL and DE.
“He’s an iron man,” Schmidt said of the all-state wrestler. Huck finished third in Class 3 at 175 pounds in February.
On the final play of the first half, Kisner ran about 80 yards before being tackled inside the 10-yard line. He could have scored another TD late in the game, but chose to down the ball so the Dragons could run out the clock. The De Soto defense had forced North County to punt before that rush.
“Cannon could have scored a touchdown easy, but they were out of timeouts and he did a baseball slide so we could run out the clock. Smart kid,” Schmidt said.
The Dragons are at Festus (No. 1, 7-2) for the district semifinals at 7 p.m. on Friday. The three-time defending MAFC, and two-time defending district champion Tigers had a bye last week, have won seven games in a row and beat De Soto 36-8 on Sept. 18. Festus has a 10-game win streak against the Dragons going back to 2019. The Tigers played in the Show-Me Bowl in 2024 and were in the semifinals last year.
Hawks head to Sikeston
Hillsboro QB Aiden Fleming completed 19 of 24 passes for 196 yards and three TDs to spark the Hawks (No. 3, 6-4) to a runaway 54-16 Class 4 District 1 win over visiting Windsor (6, 3-7) on Oct. 30.
It was Hillsboro’s second win against the Owls in less than a month. The Hawks won 41-0 in Imperial on Oct. 2.
Hillsboro is at Sikeston (2, 7-2) at 7 p.m. on Friday in the district semifinals. The Bulldogs have beaten their last three opponents (Poplar Bluff, New Madrid, Charleston) by a combined score of 138-12. Their two losses were to Farmington and Jackson.