Week 5 of the prep football season offers something a little different than most of the rest of the 2010 football weekends. It’s the beginning of Homecoming season, which means many of the schools that usually play on Friday night, will instead play on Saturday afternoon.
And as it happens, this particular Saturday features a number of the area’s top teams squaring off against one another. This might actually be the best Saturday of the season, with at least six marquee-type matchups on that one day alone, including our choice for the Game of the Week, top-ranked East St. Louis taking on bitter conference rival O’Fallon.
Here’s an inside look:
#1 Sat., Sept. 25 East St. Louis (4-0) at O’Fallon (3-1), 1 p.m.
With all due respect to the splendid Battle for Belleville matchup between Belleville East and Belleville West on Saturday, this showdown between No. 1-ranked East Side and quickly rising O’Fallon just might be the Metro East Game of the Year.
It definitely ranks as one of the best matchups we’ll see on the ILL-side this season, as the high-flyin’ East Side Flyers square off against the big-hitting, big-playmaking Panthers.
The Flyers offense has been rollin’ all season. They lead the area in scoring at 47.8 points/game. Junior QB Lamontiez Ivy is the leader of the group, and he’ll come into Saturday’s showdown as the Southwestern Conference’s top-rated passer, with 614 yards and eight TDs. His favorite target is flashy senior and Arkansas Razorback recruit Keante Minor, who leads the league with 382 receiving yards and six TDs.
The real star for East Side though, has been Mizzou recruit RB Anthony Pierson. The 5’11”, 175-pound senior is the metro area leader in rushing yards and yards/carry, with 738 yards, 10 TDs, and a 14.8 yard average. “The Truth” as some Mizzou fans call him, has definitely made himself one of the candidates for area Player-of-the-Year.
‘Fallon has got some talented kids on offense too. RB Ejay Johnson is the area’s seventh leading rusher with 582 yards and has scored 10 TDs. While teammate Todd Porter has improved every week at QB
#2 Fri., Sept. 24 DeSmet (2-2) at Chaminade (3-0), 7 p.m.
Three of the most talented players in the state will be on display when these Metro Catholic Conference rivals do battle on Friday. Chaminade’s Rob Standard, who recently announced his committment to Iowa State next season, is the reigning St. Louis American Offensive Player of the Year. And with 659 yards and 11 TDs in only three games this year, the 5’10”, 185-pounder is looking like he wants to bring home the award again.
On defense, Chaminade is lead by one of the most sought after underclassmen in the entire country, 6’2″, 230-pound sophomore LB Brandon Minor. The kid is a flat-out beast on the field. Often unblockable and mostly unstoppable, Minor averages better than 10 tackles a game, despite constant double- and triple-teaming.
For DeSmet, junior speedster Durron Neal is the star. He’s had to move around some to cover for injured teammates, so he’s not put up numbers like he did when he was the St. Louis American Sophomore of the Year last year. But he’s still one of the most electric players in the area with the ball in his hands. He proved that last week, with a 61-yard lightning bolt catch and run for a TD that put away DeSmet’s 28-7 win over rival Vianney.
#3 Sat., Sept. 25 Kirkwood (2-1) at Parkway North (3-1), 1 p.m.
It’s new and it’s already nasty. The verbal war fans of these two teams began months ago on the internet, and now this new Suburban South Conference rivalry has the potential to be one of the most heated in the area.
he Pioneers are coming off a gut-wrenching, final play of the game loss to second-ranked Hazelwood Central. In case you missed it, Kirkwood and Central were tied at 38, with Kirkwood setting up for a game-winning FG. But the two-time defending champs blocked the FG, then returned it for the game-winning score for themselves to remain unbeaten and send the Pioneer fans home heartbroken.
QB B.J. Buckner was very good for Kirkwood in that game. He passed for 187 yards & three TDs to lead the Pioneers. This week though, his main job will be helping the ‘Wood piece itself back together in time for the game, because the Pioneers are gonna have a whole new kinda challenge facing them when they get to Parkway North on Friday.
The Vikings, save for an opening night debacle at SLUH, have been fantastic in three straight blowout wins over Summit, U-City, and Timberland. Senior RB James Hawkins has been especially fantastic. He is second in the conference in rushing with 573 yards, and he leads the area in scoring with 15 TDs.
#4 Fri., Sept. 24 CBC (3-1) at Francis Howell (4-0) 7 p.m.
We don’t talk too often about games in St. Charles County because that’s not exactly in our primary coverage area. So even though the great T.J. Moe and Montee Ball and Carl Gettis played out there, we didn’t too much talk about their games. But this week, we just couldn’t ignore the scintillating Friday night matchup between CBC and Francis Howell.
If you haven’t followed Howell, then you’re missing out. The Vikings feature one of the most talented prep athletes in the state in senior QB Brett Graves. The 6’3″, 215-pounder is already committed to play baseball at Mizzou next year. But he’s been just as spectacular on the gridiron this year as he was on the mound for Howell last year. And he’s a big reason why Francis Howell is the area’s second-highest scoring team at 45.3 points/game.
Already this season, Graves ranks among the area leaders in total offense with nearly 1,400 yards and 16 combined TDs, and he leads the area with 12 TD passes.
CBC features two of my other favorite players in the area to watch in super-fast RBs Antonio Brown and Josiah Stanfield. For the season, Brown and Stanfield have combined for nearly 700 rushing yards and 10 TDs.
#5 Sat., Sept. 25 Hazelwood Central (4-0) at Hazelwood East (1-3) 1 p.m.
Forget what you heard. They might be rebuilding at East, but they are not down. Head coach Brian Simmons and his crew of Spartans are always dangerous, and it’s just a matter of time before that group brings that program back to the top. And it wouldn’t surprise me, or really anyone for that matter, if that rise began this week when archrival Hazelwood Central comes for a visit.
The Hawks are coming off two straight Missouri Class 6 state championships, and they’re still loaded. We’ve talked often about Central’s great LBs Cortland Dunlap & A.J. Chappelle. But so far this year, the real star has been transfer QB Jamal Flowers.
For the season, he’s thrown for 896 yards and nine TDs. He had 389 yards and four TDs in the win over Kirkwood last week. Senior wideout Michael Jordan caught two of those TDs last week.
For East, QB Trey Hill has passed for 797 yards, but has almost as many INTs (eight) as he does TDs (nine). His favorite target is spectacular senior WR Jaylen Fulton. A star point guard on the hardwood for the basketball Spartans and Team Ramey in AAU ball, Fulton has 387 receiving yards and seven TDs this season, and leads the area with an incredible 32.3 yards/catch average.
Other games of note:
Fri., Sept. 24
Clayton at Jennings 4 p.m.
Ft. Zumwalt N. at Ritenour 7 p.m.
Eureka at Parkway S. 7 p.m.
Lindbergh at Marquette 7 p.m.
Union at Ft. Zumwalt E. 7 p.m.
Sat., Sept. 25
Belleville E. at Belleville W. 1 p.m.
Normandy at Ladue 1 p.m.
Lutheran N. at John Burroughs 1 p.m.
Vashon at Roosevelt 1:30 p.m.
