For the third year in a row, the Northwest and Oakville football teams meet on Week 9, which is the final game before they both enter Class 6 District 1 play.
And this year is no exception when it comes to the stakes involved in the outcome in a game that kicks off at 7 p.m. on Friday at Oakville. The winner claims the Suburban Conference Orange pool championship and will get the higher seed when the District 1 playoffs begin. Currently, the Tigers are 7-1, having won seven in a row since falling 33-14 to Seckman in the season opener. The Lions are also 7-1 and percentage points (44.92-42.48) ahead of Oakville in the district standings. Unbeaten and defending district champion Jackson (8-0) is the No. 1 seed.
“They’re running the heck out of the ball, and it’s similar to Seckman’s style when they weren’t attempting many passes,” Northwest head coach Scott Gerling said. “We know the run game will be a challenge. We’ve been pretty good against the run. We played well against Fox, but they don’t run the ball as well as Oakville does.”
Heightening the drama is that the Tigers have pitched three straight shutouts and the Lions two. Gerling said this is one of those games where it’s important to temper player emotions.
“We’re going to address the implications of the game at the beginning of the week, and then it’s about our game plan, executing, and we played them tight the last couple of years,” he said. “When we played well against them, we won the turnover battle.”
Oakville head coach Mike Genge said once his team established its true identity as a power running team behind a veteran offensive line full of seniors, he could see the players’ confidence grow each week.
“We just figured out who we are,” Genge said. “We’ve been building off that. The kids have bought into what we do. When you’re successful, the kids don’t question it. We’ve been sound on defense.
“We have a three- or four-headed monster on offense. We won a few games, but things weren’t clicking, and we decided to use them all. We do it with more running backs on the field. Our OL loves to move people and get nasty. I know Scott’s going to have those guys ready. We get to come home. That’s always good. We want to see where we’re at. Because of the scores, we haven’t had a full game for a while with our starters.”
In their 55-0 drubbing of winless Mehlville (0-8) on Oct. 16, the Tigers rushed for 311 yards, getting 140 from running back Jackson Oettle, who went over 1,000 yards for the season and leads Oakville with 18 TDs.
Oakville deploys two quarterbacks during games, using Zach Sepko and Jackson Smith, depending on the game situation and package it wants to run. Sepko is second on the team with 461 yards rushing.
“Both are very talented,” Genge said. “I feel like our offensive staff does an amazing job of taking simplicity and making it look complex.”
Cohenn Stark is just one person, but sometimes he might seem like two or three QBs coming at a defense. Stark threw a 25-yard TD to Chase Belcher, and ran for a 46-yard score in the second in Northwest’s 35-0 shutout against Webster Groves (3-4) in Cedar Hill on Oct. 16.
“Our offense was humming,” Gerling said. “We got points off defense, short drives. We maybe snapped the ball a dozen or 15 times and got all of those points.”
Stark deservedly is the showpiece for the Lions, but their defense has been equally impressive. Northwest has allowed 63 points in eight games, just over a TD and PAT per contest. It was the defense that put the Lions on the scoreboard first against the Statesmen when free safety Jax Newcomer returned an interception 43 yards to paydirt. The game’s scoring ended with a Northwest safety when a Webster snap went out of its end zone.
“They’re playing lights out,” Gerling said of the defense. “We had some near misses for shutouts early and they accepted that as a unit, that the expectations will remain high, and if you rally to the football, good things will happen.”
During practice, the Lions’ defensive unit practices returning the ball after a turnover.
“They do a good job of what they do when they get the ball in their hands,” Gerling said.