Prep football fans have more options than Fox QB Jude Pribish on Friday night.
Six county teams host district semifinals in what’s sure to be a night to remember. And we’ve got it all from Class 1 to Class 6, where in Cedar Hill in Class 6 District 1, Northwest awaits a hungry Seckman team with its full arsenal of weapons and desire to reverse last season’s 14-7 loss in Imperial to the Lions in the same round.
The rematch offers one of the best QB matchups anywhere in the state.
Before the season began, Seckman senior Brody Kube and Northwest senior Cohenn Stark graced the cover of the Leader football previews. Kube came back in-season from a broken collarbone and hasn’t missed a beat flinging the ball to his favorite target, senior Nick Weidler. Stark knows all about being injured playing football. His injury against Jackson in last year’s district final kept him out of wrestling season. Stark is like a bull in a china shop with the ball in his hands, smashing all of the school’s offensive records with four years of varsity football to his credit.
No stats today. I’ve covered these two guys for their entire time in high school. When Kube and Festus QB Parker Perry and then Seckman head coach Nick Baer’s son, Cohner, all were seriously injured so early in the season, I think their hurt was spread around to all of us who care about them as people. I could see how excited Nick was when Cohner and Brody came back and the Jaguars dominated Ritenour in a home game. Stark is a legacy athlete at Northwest. His family has been excelling at athletics at the school for generations. Those generations will be there with pride and love for Cohenn.
As an overview of the game, Northwest has the back-end talent on defense to defend against the Kube-Weidler air show. Look for Seckman RB JJ Jablonski to get plenty of carries, and if the Jag offense looks anything like it did against Ritenour, the Lions will face multiple players taking snaps. The NW offense begins and ends with whatever Stark decides to do when the play begins. He reads the defense and makes split-second decisions on whether to keep it or hand it to Chase Belcher, Will Murphy or a cast of RBs. Stark has thrown 130 passes, his favorite targets being Braydon Jones, Jax Newcomer and Jackson Webb.
I think this year’s game will provide more fireworks and points, but it will fall within one score (eight points).
Fresh off winning its first conference championship, Jefferson (Quad County Conference) hosts Montgomery County in Class 2 District 2. I’ve been plugging the Blue Jays passing combo of QB Sam Kerley and WR Ollie Klump all year because they’ve consistently produced through 10 games. Kerley’s completion percentage and TD to interception ratio rivals Kube’s, and he’s got plenty of targets in Kollyn Waters, Logan Young and Evan Botkin. When Jefferson runs the ball this season, Aidan Kentch gets the bulk of the carries.
Jefferson moves on with a win over MC, but like the Northwest/Seckman winner, their fate in the district final is having to travel to one of the unbeaten established state powers. Of course, Valle Catholic and Jackson (Class 6 District 1) have to win their semifinal games, but among the few certainties in life right now, those are two of them.
De Soto’s Class 4 District 1 semifinal win at North County last week guaranteed the Dragons a winning record, regardless of the outcome against Festus on Friday. As I reported in the football notebook, the Tigers have a long winning streak against De Soto, and frankly, most of the games were blowouts. But De Soto has its own generational talent at QB in Cannon Kisner, and a true school legend among coaches and peers on defense in Levi Huck, who won’t disappear if things against Festus go sideways.
Parker Perry was also on one of the preview covers, and his broken collarbone early on didn’t derail the chances for Festus to make another deep playoff run. Quinnten O’Brien has put up similar efficient passing numbers to Perry, and he’s handed the ball to the indefatigable Kamden Yates more than 200 times. I think Yates is the MAFC MVP this year. I hear the conference voting has been done, and I won’t be privy to those selections due to the embargo placed by the coaches. They don’t want the results out before the last team in the MAFC is eliminated.
That won’t be for awhile. Festus might not stop playing until December. Release the results now!
St. Pius X played in the Show-Me Bowl last year, making it three years in a row the county played in the big game that was moved to St. Joseph in 2025 and will be there for awhile. The Lancers host Park Hills Central on Friday, and will try to put behind a 52-6 loss to Valle on Oct. 23.
St. Pius leading rusher Cody Shaver was suspended for the semifinal game after he was penalized twice for unsportsmanlike conduct against Valle.
Fox benefited from a MSHSAA ruling that cost Farmington the No. 1 seed in Class 5 District 1 for using ineligible players by moving to the top spot. The Warriors host the Knights, who’ve won five games in a row. Farmington forfeited four games. Pribish leads an offense that’s the best Fox has had since the district final teams in 2018-2019 and semifinalist in 2020.
Grandview season ends 0-10 after loss to Veritas
While their families patiently waited by the sidelines at Veritas Christian Academy in O’Fallon on Oct. 30, the players and coaches of the Grandview football team gathered for their usual postgame ritual.
After losing 49-14 to Veritas, also the Eagles, in the Class 1 District 2 tournament, Grandview tightened up its small circle, and one by one, the players and coaches said their piece. A quick clap by all followed each testimony. When that was over, a lengthy prayer was the last act of an 0-10 campaign, Grandview’s first without a win since 2018.
“No matter how a game goes – the highs, the lows, the negatives – obviously there’s been a ton of adversity this year, but one thing we always do at the end of games or practices is end with positives because I want to make sure these kids, no matter how bad things get, or a season can be, every time they leave the field, they know there was something good from it,” Grandview head coach Cory Hanger said.
Grandview was coming off its finest season in decades, but a combination of graduation losses and preseason injuries to key players foiled its chances at similar success. Perhaps the biggest loss was to senior Aaron Smith, who would have been a two-way starter at running back and linebacker but couldn’t get on the field because of a broken foot.
A vital cog in the 2025 success, senior RB Brock Poole had his own battle with injuries this season, but he ended his career with second-half TD runs of 6 and 27 yards against Veritas, which also beat Grandview 40-22 on Sept. 18.
“I challenged him at halftime and told him, ‘Brock, you’re not giving everything you have right now. You’re slowing down at the hit. I know your knee’s bothering you.’ I told him he had more, and after halftime, every single time he ran the ball, he looked like a guy who was (mad) at something. I am happy that he could end his career with two big plays,” Hanger said.
Like all Class 1 schools, Grandview, the No. 5 seed, and Veritas (No. 4) are constantly trying to keep the roster stocked with enough players to sustain a grueling 10-game (or more) season. Veritas had 16 players dressed against Grandview. It had been seven years since the Eagles from O’Fallon had won a district game. Veritas travels to play No. 1 seed Louisiana (7-2) at 7 p.m. on Friday.
“It’s been a challenging year,” Veritas head coach Derrick Colquitt said. “We’ve had injuries, a couple of guys quit the team, but we had an extremely good week of practice.”
Grandview’s top returning skill players for 2027 look to be freshman Trenton Christopher, sophomore Bobby Gregory and junior QB Christian Volner, who played with a “banged up” shoulder. Gregory ran the ball hard and can throw the ball on the move, and he missed the first five weeks with a broken wrist before coming back to play against Herculaneum.
“He’s gotten better and better at fullback,” Hanger said.