The two-point conversion is sometimes an overlooked play in a football game.
Not every high school team can supply a kicker capable of splitting the uprights for extra points. So going for two is the only option they have.
Eureka’s first two games were decided by a two-point conversion. In a 49-48 overtime win at Troy Buchanan on Aug. 28, the Trojans scored a touchdown but were unable to cross the goal line, and the Wildcats won 49-48. In the 29-28 loss to visiting Hannibal on Sept. 4, the Pirates scored a touchdown with 15 seconds remaining and punched across the conversion. Hannibal had made its previous three extra points and obviously was going for the win, instead of playing for overtime.
After losing to Kearney in the Class 4 Show-Me Bowl in December, Hannibal improved to 1-1, the same record as Eureka.
The Wildcats led the Pirates 21-7 after the first quarter after running back Brandon Webb scored on TD runs of 6 and 2 yards. Curtis Harris made it 21-7 with a 1-yard TD run with 41 seconds left in the first. Kicker Patrick Bradley made all three PATs.
Hannibal tied the game with two TDs and two PATs, but Eureka went back on top when Sal Gianino caught a 46-yard TD pass from QB Zac Kem with 7:15 left in the game. Gianino caught four passes for 95 yards. Kem was 11-for-15 for 149 yards.
Kem and Rudy Lang had a spirited battle to be the team’s starting QB, and Kem has emerged as No. 1.
“He’s had a great two weeks of football,” Sumner said. “He’s doing some wonderful things running our offense with his legs, arms and leadership.”
In the game at Troy, 34 points were scored in the first quarter, with the Wildcats leading 21-13. Running back AJ White had TD runs of 33 and 31 yards, and Webb crossed the goal line from 2 yards out.
In the second quarter, the two teams traded TDs. Garrett Anders caught a 14-yard TD pass from Kem with 3:53 left in the half. However, Anders suffered a knee injury later and will miss the remainder of the season.
“Super electric football player. It breaks my heart. He did everything we asked of him. He’ll come back stronger next year,” Sumner said.
Anders started the second half scoring with a 40-yard TD grab from Kem, and Eureka led Troy 35-27 going to the fourth. The Trojans tied the game with 9:19 left, but Webb scored on a 12-yard run with 4:32 left. Elijah Conley scored a TD run for the Trojans with 1:40 left, and they converted for two points to tie the game.
Overtime rules give each team at least one possession to score from the 25-yard line. Time isn’t kept. AJ White scored on a 6-yard run and Bradley booted his seventh PAT of the game. Kyle Eisenbath caught a 16-yard TD pass from Carter Shafer, and in the same scenario as the Hannibal game, Troy tried to win the game walk-off style with the conversion and failed.
Through two games, Webb leads the Wildcats with 184 yards rushing and four TDs. Kem seems to have won the QB battle that went on through training camp, and he’s completed 78 percent (33-of-42) for 366 yards. Bradley is a perfect 10-for-10 making PATs.
Eureka visits Parkway North (1-1) tonight (Sept. 10) at 6 p.m.
“Parkway North is a talented football team,” Sumner said. “They’re the No. 1 seed in the Red pool. It’s going to be a good game. A lot of back and forth. We’ll see how our kids respond after the (Hannibal game).
“We learned some great lessons in those first two games. We were in some tough moments. And that’s the reason we put those teams on our schedule. For us, it’s about getting better each week. These two games made us learn a lot about ourselves. And we’ll grow from them.”
Wildcats beat Lions in wild OT shootout
The boys soccer game Sept. 3 in Cedar Hill between visiting Eureka and Northwest had everything a fan could love.
Hat tricks, red cards, comebacks, it had it all.
Each team had a player score a hat trick (three goals). The Lions turned a 2-0 halftime deficit into a 3-2 lead 12 minutes into the second half. Northwest (2-2) somehow tied the game 5-5 with 47 seconds remaining in regulation, playing two men down because of red cards. Add a sudden-death overtime ending.
Whew! The game was so exciting the two head coaches were shaking hands in the second half as the action intensified and the goals kept coming.
Finally, Eureka senior Jameson Foley scored the game-winning goal early in OT to give the Wildcats (3-1) a 6-5 Suburban Conference Green pool victory, which was its third in a row. Foley assisted on three goals scored by senior Henry Eichholz.
“Jameson’s pressing hard. He wants to score. We know that,” Eureka head coach Mike Hanna said. “We moved Eichholz up top in the last game, and he got us a great goal against Lindbergh, and tonight he comes back with three goals.”
Northwest senior midfielder Parker Durham did Eichholz one better by scoring four goals for the first time in his career. Durham had a hat trick in the season-opening win over St. Charles and leads the team with eight.
“Parker’s always been a talented kid for us, but he’s always lacked a little confidence,” Northwest head coach Dave Willis said. “He got into the weight room and he dedicated himself the way I’ve never seen. He’s not getting bumped off balls in the midfield. He’s quicker. Everything he’s getting now he totally deserves.”
Durham scored twice, and senior Sam Graham added another goal to help the Lions erase the halftime deficit and take a 3-2 lead.
“I didn’t like the first half at all,” Willis said. “We came out extremely flat, and I saw it in warmups and our guys eyes. We had a great victory over Lafayette a couple of nights ago, so maybe there’s a little hangover there. But we didn’t play our game in the first half, but I’m really proud of the response in the second half. We were down 2-0 to a good team, and we came out in the second half a completely different unit with intensity and togetherness.”
Eichholz scored in the 56th minute to tie the game 3-3. About a minute later, Northwest junior Logan Mayer was helped to the sideline with an injury that needed treatment and kept him from returning. In the 61st minute Eureka junior Colton Sobacke gave his team a 4-3 lead.
A few minutes later, Durham tied the game 4-4 after scoring on a penalty kick low into the corner of the goal.
Junior Aiyden Brown and senior Drew Johnson of Northwest received red cards in the 73rd minute. That meant the Wildcats played with a two-man advantage, and under Missouri State High School Activities Association guidelines, Brown and Johnson are suspended from the Lions’ next game.
“I hate that it ends with us down two dudes,” Willis said. “It’s not something you practice, nor had we prepared for. Our guys were heroes tonight. Legs are done, it’s hot out, and (Eureka’s) trying to keep the ball. Son of a gun if we didn’t tie it up and send it to OT.”
Eichholz completed his hat trick in the 75th minute to put the Wildcats back on top 5-4. Then, incredibly, playing with nine on the field, after almost 80 minutes of soccer at the end of another sweltering day, Durham broke through the defense and scored to tie the game 5-5.
“We have to fight, keep going, and anything can happen,” he said. “Knowing we were two men down, we were playing defense hard in our own end. Once we got the chance to break out, we put it in their end and good things happened.”
Despite the loss, Willis said there was much gained.
“We found something in ourselves that we didn’t know we had, and we’ll be able to draw on that later on,” he said. “We’re never out of a game.”
Durham, Mavrick Pieper and Braden Didway scored goals for the Lions in a 3-2 win over Lafayette on Sept. 1.
“Lafayette was bigger and faster, but our guys had a lot of grit,” Willis said. “I feel Lafayette didn’t try to use their skill as much. They tried to use athleticism, and they got a couple of goals doing that. We got a couple of dirty goals where bodies are diving in front of the ball, not letting them out of their own box.”
Freshmen pitchers get first varsity exposure
Missing its top pitcher with an injury in the first game of the season Aug. 27, the Eureka softball team had the tying runs on base in the seventh inning before falling 4-2 to Francis Howell North.
The Knights have one of the top pitchers in the state in senior Lexi Lohnes, who has committed to playing at Mississippi State University. In the 2025 season opener, Lohnes struck out 15 Wildcats in a no-hit victory. In this year’s first game, Lohnes fanned 13 Eureka batters and allowed two unearned runs.
Meanwhile, Wildcat senior pitcher Chrystal Hall fouled a pitch off of her leg in the jamboree and couldn’t play against the Knights in this year’s opener.
“In the jamboree in the last game, I fouled a ball off my shin,” Hall said. “I had to take a few days off because my foot was bruised and swollen. It’s nice knowing we have a pitching lineup behind me. It gave me time to get better so I was ready for the tournament.”
Hall’s injury pushed freshmen Harper Hubbard into the circle to start her first varsity game. Harper went five innings, struck out seven, allowed six hits and two of the four runs she allowed were unearned. Freshman Estelle Gianino relieved Hubbard and pitched a scoreless sixth.
“Overall, I feel really good because we had two freshmen pitchers in the first game,” Eureka head coach Mark Mosley said. “And in my time as a coach here, I’ve not had a freshman pitcher start the first game.
“Harper Hubbard did an amazing job of limiting an amazing hitter in Lohnes hitless all game. Gianino did an amazing job in the circle after (Hubbard). We had a few mental lapses that led to their runs. They had two good swings for home runs. It’s always hard starting the season against one of the best hitters in the state.”
Journey Vaughn and Alina Logush had the two hits off of Lohnes. In the seventh, the Knights committed two errors and Vaughn drew a walk, but Lohnes struck out the final two batters.
“We had an unfortunate base-running incident that wiped a run off the board,” Mosley said. “We could have been up 2-0 after that first inning. We had the game-tying run on the bases.”
Following the game against North, Eureka won its next five games in three days at Lions Park and captured the championship of the Parkway Tournament.
Hall returned to the circle in a 17-0 win over Holt and is now 3-0. But it was the Wildcat offense that made the biggest difference when it scored 58 runs during the tournament held Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.
“It was different being a senior this year,” Hall said of her first start. “I felt like I needed to make it special and make it memorable. My mentality is better. Knowing I can do it because I’ve been through it so many times. I trust my team, especially after putting up all of those runs against those good pitchers.”
During the tournament, the Wildcats faced the Knights again without Lohnes in the circle and won 11-1. Emmy Seiler was 3-for-4 at the plate with four RBIs, a double and home run. Hall fanned nine to earn the win.
Eureka beat Cor Jesu Academy 5-3 in the tournament final. The Chargers finished fourth in the state in Class 4 in 2024 and won 21 games last year. The Wildcats plated four runs in the third and Cor Jesu responded with three in the fifth.
Hall earned the win, allowing three earned runs and striking out five. Logush had three hits.
This season, Seiler, Logush and Gianino are all batting above .500. Logush has two homers and 15 RBIs.
Hubbard earned her first varsity win in a 7-3 victory over Kirkwood.
“I’m super excited to work with Hubbard the next four years,” Mosley said.
Eureka hosts Rockwood Summit (2-3) today (Sept. 10) in a Suburban Conference Yellow pool game.
Cross country season begins on blistering day
Two of the top girls cross country teams in the state went head to head in their first meet of the year Sept. 4 in the First Capital Invitational at McNair Park in St. Charles.
A Class 3 school, Herculaneum has won 11 state championships, second only to West Plains (14). The Blackcats finished third in the state last year. A rising Class 5 power, Eureka won state in 2024, and also finished third in 2025. Herculaneum finished the 3.1-mile (5K) race in St. Charles with 58 points, one ahead of the Wildcats.
Runners at First Capital encountered the heatwave that’s blanketed the area for the last week, and the times showed it. None of the runners was able to finish in under 20:00. Parkway South sophomore Leah Grither won in 20:25.10. All-state senior Emerson Reeves was the first Herculaneum runner to finish in fifth in 21:01.17.
“The heat played a factor,” Eureka head coach Darrell Lewis said. “It was 95 degrees when we started. We changed to doing a tempo workout, instead of running for times. I wanted the girls packed up. The pace I told them to run would have been like 21:30. The goal was for them to be able to touch each other throughout the race.”
Eureka junior Claire McKinnon was the first Wildcat to cross in seventh place in 21:16.32. As an example of the disparity of times because of the race conditions, McKinnon’s PR is 18:59.
The next four Eureka runners finished in the top 20: junior Sofia Hoerchler (13th, 21:34.36), junior Madison Schepis (14th, 21:38.30), sophomore Audrey Dalton (17th, 21:43.85) and junior Olivia Golden (19th, 21;46.51).
“This race was a lower-priority meet,” Lewis said. “First meet of the year, in the heat. We got the experience of moving like a pack. I felt like we could compete even with that plan. We practiced at 6 a.m. all week. We’re not in PR shape right now. We start the season slower than most people and catch them as the season goes on.”
The Herculaneum boys have also won 11 state titles and were third last year. The Blackcats won the boys side at First Capital with 92 points. Eureka was fourth with 120 points.
Lutheran-St. Charles had the top two boys runners, and junior Andrew Perry was the top Wildcat in eighth place in 17:42.14. Senior William Diekmann (13th, 18:06.77), junior Tyler Rauls (24th, 18:36.62), senior Logan Schilling (42nd, 19:17.69) and junior Brooks Malaney (46th, 19:18.68) were the scoring runners for Eureka.
Girls volleyball is undefeated
The Eureka girls volleyball team is off to a 4-0 start after beating Fort Zumwalt West, St. Dominic, Oakville and St. Francis Borgia. St. Dominic was a Class 5 state quarterfinalist last year.
Elise Parker (30) and Caroline Tenholder (22) lead the Wildcats in kills. Setter Shelbi Mead has 51 assists. And Macy Berg (35) and Parker (31) are the team’s digs leaders.
Eureka is at Parkway West tonight (Sept. 10) for a Suburban Conference Yellow pool game.