After covering a whirlwind of three prep football games in three days, there’s a lot to unpack about the beginning of the season.
Three teams from Jefferson County came from behind to win on the road. Jefferson looked sluggish for its 10 a.m. start at Priory on Aug. 31, but rallied behind big plays from the quarterback combo of junior Cooper Frisk and senior Karson Haefner to beat the Ravens 33-16. Windsor trailed at Herculaneum until the last second when fullback Landen Robbins scored the game-winning TD in a 22-21 Owl comeback. And Northwest trailed at Sullivan 12-0 at halftime before rallying for a 14-12 win partly with the help of a freshman kicker.
The only thing that can make a football coach happier than a solid road ‘W’ is a solid road ‘W’ in comeback fashion.
“We never play great at the beginning of a Saturday game,” Jefferson head coach Matt Atley said. “We can’t use that as an excuse, either. We have to do better to prepare. We needed to relax and find our comfort zone. And once we did that, I thought we were hard to stop. We struggled at times running inside, but our line did a great job of sealing the edge.”
Priory QB Jack Parent, the son of Ravens head coach Jake Parent, passed and ran for touchdowns in the first half to give his team a 13-0 lead. It was 13-7 at halftime when senior running back Landon Weiss cleaved the Raven defense with a 68-yard sprint to the end zone. Freshman kicker Dekota French split the uprights for the second time with the PAT for a 14-13 Blue Jay lead.
Later in the third, junior Troy Jefferson blocked and recovered a Priory punt that led to a Haefner rushing TD and a 21-13 advantage.
The Ravens opted to go for it on fourth-and-11 on their side of the 50, but Parent threw a long incompletion hoping in vain to draw a pass-interference penalty. Frisk then sprinted 40 yards for the next Blue Jay TD, widening the lead to 27-13.
“We’ve run that play over and over to perfection, so it came out great,” Frisk said. “I saw the hole and took the cutback to where I could get into some open space.
“It’s no rotation (at quarterback). If I have to take a break, we put Karson in and he’s had reps at QB since he was a freshman. I don’t doubt either of our abilities (there).”
Atley said both signal-callers got off to a slow start at preseason practice.
“Over the past two weeks they have been close-knit and hanging out a lot,” Atley said. “You can see it develop on the field.”
The Ravens booted a field goal and Weiss closed out the scoring with another explosive TD run. Meanwhile, the Blue Jay defense did a better job of containing Parent in the second half.
“We had to keep making them guess with our play-calling and switch up coverages,” Atley said. “He was good at checking out of plays, and when he would, I would. It was like a game of chess. That young man (Parent) is a special player who can do some good things.”
Northwest was blown out 49-3 at home by Sullivan last season, so pulling off a win – especially by overcoming a 12-point deficit – is a major achievement for the Lions and head coach Scott Gerling.
“The kids really earned it,” said Gerling, who was 1-9 in his first season last year. “They kept grinding and making adjustments when need be. It’s a come-from-behind win with four seniors.”
Cohenn Stark scored the game-winning touchdown in the fourth quarter from 35 yards. Freshman Caden Richard made both of his extra-point attempts for the ultimate margin of victory.
“He weighs 100 pounds but he’s a tough kid,” Gerling said.
Stark and Cooper Viehland each played quarterback, misfiring on a combined six pass attempts, but also accounting for 129 yards on the ground. Stark also led the defensive unit with nine tackles.
“We had some near misses in the passing game,” Gerling said. “(Sullivan’s) kids made plays at the point of attack. (Stark and Viehland) both play defense, so we’re trying to keep them fresh enough to make plays.”
Lion sophomore linebackers and cousins Chase and Kaleb Belcher each had a fumble recovery in the first half. Kaleb kept Sullivan from increasing its lead when he jumped on the ball inside the Northwest 5-yard line.
“They both helped us stay in the game while we tried to get our footing,” Gerling said.
Northwest is back on the road at Mehlville Friday in a Suburban Conference Orange pool game. The Panthers were hammered 34-6 by Fox in their opener.
“They’re a tough south county team with good athletes who play hard on defense and mix it up on offense with a wing-T and counters,” Gerling said. “(They) are good at what they do.”
Storms moved through the southern part of the county Friday, forcing premature endings and a real dilemma at Hillsboro.
Festus hosted Rolla and the game was suspended with the Tigers leading 20-6 with seven minutes remaining. Festus AD Jason Therrell said it’s a complete game and the Tigers are 1-0.
When lightning halted the Hawks’ home contest against MICDS, the Rams led 21-14 in the third quarter, but Hillsboro had just scored and head coach Bill Sucharski understandably felt like momentum had swung in his team’s favor. Neither coach wanted to restart the game after sitting out an hour or more, because players would cool down and face an increasing likelihood of injury.
Sucharski said his brother, Brian, the Hillsboro AD, had secured officials to return Saturday, but MICDS declined.
According to the Missouri State High School Activities Association handbook, “if both schools or their designated representatives and the head official cannot mutually agree that the weather conditions are safe, the game shall be postponed. The game may either be considered a completed game at that point or rescheduled at a later time according to game rules.”
MICDS says they won 21-14. Sucharski said he doesn’t plan on counting the game as a loss and if the Rams won’t honor their contract to complete the game, Hillsboro will not play them next year as they’re scheduled to do. For now, the outcome is in limbo. Bill Sucharski said he was going to file a complaint with MSHSAA.
“The best thing to do is call it a no-contest,” he said.
In a future column I’ll tackle what I’ve been told is a serious shortage of officials for football. I know this is a problem in most sports, but this will be about just football. I’ll be talking to Pat Burns, who’s in charge of scheduling officials in the county, and also with local ADs.
I couldn’t help but note the irony of the shortage when I saw Luke Skaggs officiating the Windsor-Herculaneum game. A few years ago I wrote about Skaggs being exactly the kind of young, motivated official MSHSAA desperately seeks. It really sank in when I saw Windsor head coach Lee Freeman ask Skaggs a question during the game. Skaggs played running back for Freeman on Hillsboro’s 2017 district-champion team.
There’s always room for optimism these days. And that small interaction gave me more.