Southeast Missourian Gridiron Guide: Week 8

Each week of the high school football season, Southeast Missourian sports editor Tony Capobianco will provide a quick matchup rundown for each of the seven area teams. Doniphan canceling the rest of their season has thrown a wrench into the schedules of both Chaffee and Scott City. Chaffee gets the rare bye week with the forfeit win this week while Scott City will have a long layoff between Thursday's road game at Charleston and the district playoffs.

__Scott City (6-2) at Charleston (2-5)__

With the forfeiture of Doniphan's remaining two games, Scott City's short week will lead to a long layoff between Thursday and the district playoffs.

Mark Panagos has been operating around 80 percent throughout the season. He rushed for 126 yards and threw for 100 yards for a total of four touchdowns in Scott City's 56-14 win over Chaffee last Friday, in Chaffee, Mo. The star senior now has 1,229 passing yards and 624 rushing yards on the season.

"I'm not gonna just sit back and let an injury take away my senior season," Panagos said.

Panagos spent a lot of time in the offseason working on passing connections with his receivers. He saw it pay off during their game against Portageville.

"All the connections were there," Panagos said. "Everybody was on the same page, running the same routes we ran here during the summer."

Despite the loss to Portageville, the Rams scoring over 30 points against the No. 2 team in Class 1 sparked their offense to the point of outscoring their next three opponents 181-28.

The balance on offense has paid off for Panagos and Tyson Underwood, who has 924 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns on the season.

"When we pass the ball, it's going to open up the run," Panagos said, "hopefully open up a lot more opportunities for me and Tyson in the backfield."

Scott City has won the last three matchups against Charleston and is likely to win a fourth. A win plus the forfeit next week would have the Rams enter the playoffs with the same record as last year (8-2).

__St. Vincent (4-3) at Grandview (3-4)__

The St. Vincent Indians have a chance to return home next week and take on Jefferson with the I55 conference on the line.

But before they do that, they must take care of business on the road against Grandview. St. Vincent has defeated Grandview in eight of its last nine games since 2012 but the one time the Indians lost serves as a reminder.

"Grandview is a team I would say two years ago, we probably looked ahead and ended up getting beat up there," Indians coach Tim Schumer said. "So I'm more focused on coming out and doing what we've been able to do the last couple weeks and play the same kind of football. If we can come out and do that, then we'll be in a really good spot."

Over the course of the season, St. Vincent has seen some contributions from players who are experiencing newfound playing time and are taking advantage of it. This past week, sophomore defensive back Max Wheeler had a surprising impact during the Indians' 42-6 win over St. Pius X. Wheeler went from someone who was originally on the fence about playing football to recovering an onside kick for a touchdown at the start of the second half.

"He's definitely been a difference maker," Schumer said, "just to kind of be another athlete on the field and be able to make plays."

__Jackson (7-1) vs. Holt (5-2)__

Jackson has enjoyed the best home cooking in recent history. The Indians have spent the previous three weeks in "The Pit" and have outscored opponents 176-0.

The Indians' only loss this season came on the road against an Illinois school at the start of the season. Since Week 1, Jackson has been one of the most dominating teams in the state of Missouri. The seniors have been a major force on offense. Quarterback Adrian Fox is one of the top passers in the area with 1,572 yards and 16 touchdowns against three interceptions. Those touchdowns have gone to senior receivers Kai Crowe (8), Blayne Harris (6), and TJ Altenthal (2), who after spending much of the summer practicing their connection on open fields, have now seen the fruits of their labor.

"It's been a fun group," Jackson head coach Ryan Nesbitt said of the seniors.

The Indians will look to avenge their 34-21 loss against Holt this Friday. The Holt Indians enter "The Pit" with an offense that scores 33.4 points per game and a defense that allows 16.4 points on average.

"They're playing well," Nesbitt said. "Offense is executing at a high level, quarterback's taking care of the football, defensively, they're really solid, so we'll have our work cut out for us."

__Cape Central (4-3) at DeSoto (1-6)__

Now that the most challenging portion of the schedule is behind them, the Cape Central Tigers are trending towards entering the playoffs with the same win total as last year (6-3). In fact, it's almost trending to the exact same finish.

Cape Central started last season 2-3 coming off a brutal loss to Jackson, then proceeded to beat Farmington, Sikeston, DeSoto, and Potosi to build momentum towards their run to the state semifinals. Just flip the Poplar Bluff and Park Hills Central outcomes this year, and it's deja vu all over again. As usual, Cape Central used the running back tandem of Keyshawn Boyd and Zai'Aire Thomas to sack Sikeston 48-8 last week.

“[Boyd and Thomas] are special and do great things,” Cape Central coach Kent Gibbs said. “All we have to do is give them a little crack or lane to run through and they do the rest. Hopefully, we continue to block well up front and they’ll continue to do the good things that they do.”

The Tigers travel to DeSoto this Friday with history repeating itself. Just like last year, the Dragon opened the season with a win over Bishop DuBourg and then proceeded to lose the rest of their games. DeSoto has only two wins since 2021.

Like dominos going down in a row, leading a trail to the inevitable.

__Perryville (3-4) at Herculaneum (3-4)__

Perryville will face its former coach Blane Boss on Friday when the Pirates travel to north take on Herculaneum. How ironic that Blane's last win as the Perryville Boss came against Herculaneum at homecoming 2020.

A win will give Perryville its fourth victory of this season, putting the Pirates one game away from their first winning season since 2017.

Offensively, Perryville is averaging one touchdown more per game than a year ago while defensively, are only giving up fewer than 30 points per game for the first time since 2019.

“I think this (game against New Madrid) gave our guys a lot of confidence that we can hang with a quality team,” Perryville head coach Brent Roth said.

Senior quarterback Rilaynd Graham reached 1,000 passing yards during the Pirates' 47-12 loss at New Madrid last week. Not only did Graham throw a touchdown pass to Chase Richardet but so did sophomore running back Barrett Wheeler. He now has thrown, caught, and ran in for a touchdown this season.

“Barrett’s got speed,” Roth said of the burly back, “he can run away from some people, but he can run you over too.”

__Kelly (6-1) at Portageville (6-1)__

Kelly takes on Portageville, the No. 2 ranked team in Class 1 in a matchup that will likely determine the SEMO South Conference Championship.

The Hawks eclipsed their previous win total with a 33-0 beatdown over Hayti last week. The Hawks amassed 303 total yards on the ground, led by senior running back Reese Eftink, who rushed for 237 yards on 20 carries with four touchdowns.

“The line did great tonight,” Eftink said. “We are missing our starting guard but we had some people step up, all week they are making great holes at practice and I felt really confident in them, coming into this game.”

They will be facing stiff competition against Portageville, who feature the reigning Semoball Offensive Player of the Year in running back Jamarion Smith, who is approaching 30 rushing touchdowns on the season after gaining 235 yards and finding the endzone four times in the Bulldogs' 49-0 win over Malden last week.

“It was a solid game for us,” said Portageville coach Ian Penrod. “We executed in all three phases of the game and got a lot of contributions on offense. We’re happy we were able to get plenty of guys involved on offense to make us harder to defend.”