Notebook: Ready for a rematch?
Beating the same team twice in one season is hard.
Beating the same team in consecutive weeks is even harder.
Beating the same team in back-to-back weeks the same day as the ACT is administered?
Let's just say it won't be easy.
Welcome to Blake Markway's world.
The St. Dominic football coach, Markway leans on his seniors every week. This week he'll need them more than most when St. Dominic (5-4) opens up in the Class 4 District 4 tournament at Priory (6-3) at 3 p.m. Saturday.
“The majority of our kids are taking the ACT that morning,” Markway said. “There are certainly a lot of challenges we're facing.”
St. Dominic must contend with the ACT and a Priory side it beat 35-14 on Friday in the regular-season finale. There are 14 games in Missouri featuring rematches of area teams from this season. It would have been 15 had Confluence (0-10) not forfeited its Class 3 District 2 first-round game to top seed and No. 3 small school Cardinal Ritter (10-0).
Of those 14 rematches, four feature teams that played in the last week of the regular season and will see one another in the first week of the postseason.
St. Dominic and Priory aren't even the only rematch in Class 4 District 4. Top seed Fort Zumwalt East (7-2) beat Warrenton (1-8) 48-7 on Friday. Those teams meet again this Friday to tango once more.
“Believe me, it's not enjoyable,” Borgia coach Dale Gildehaus said.
Borgia ended its season with a 41-0 win at home over Sullivan on Friday.
The No. 7 small school, Borgia (8-1) meets Sullivan (3-6) again at 7 p.m. this Friday in a Class 4 District 5 game. Gildehaus would rather see almost anyone else.
“They know what we did and when we're going to do it,” Gildehaus said. “You don't want to reinvent the wheel, but you have to change it up.”
Recently inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame for his 32 years of work leading the Knights, Gildehaus doesn't have to reach that far back to find an example of what happens when you play a team in consecutive weeks.
Borgia ended the 2016 regular season with a 46-35 loss to Westminster. The following week the Knights scored a 24-10 win at Westminster.
The biggest change from one week to the next? Borgia made tactical adjustments and the players executed them.
“We changed our defense between Week 9 and Week 10,” Gildehaus said.
That's the biggest question facing coaching staffs as they prepare to rematch with an opponent — how much do you change? A little? A lot?
“From a coach's side you don't want to overthink things,” Markway said.
You also don't want to replay the same game plan as the week prior, regardless of the result. The players on both teams have a better grasp on what is in front of them. They get a gauge on speed, strength, power and schemes that do not translate on film.
“They know how (their opponent) hits and how they block,” Roosevelt coach Trey Porter said.
That goes for the coaches, too. They get a better look at their opponent and can make adjustments as they prepare.
“We got a feel for (Priory's) speed and a feel for their size up front,” Markway said. “We mixed up our scout team (to emulate Priory better).”
Most high school football coaches worry about complacency affecting their teams, especially when faced with a recently felled opponent. Porter does not think he'll have that problem with his Roughriders.
Roosevelt (7-2) will rematch with Week 9 opponent DuBourg (3-6) at 7 p.m. Friday at Gateway STEM.
Roosevelt beat DuBourg 34-24 but did not play anywhere near its best football. It gave up the second-most points DuBourg scored this season and, in the process, cost itself the No. 2 seed in the Class 4 District 2 tournament. Fresh off its first Public High League championship in eight years, Roosevelt enjoyed the week leading into Friday's game with DuBourg. Maybe a little too much.
“A lot of kids were still celebrating the PHL championship,” Porter said. “We didn't play well. The kids are taking it personal (this week).”
Gildehaus said he believes the Knights will be on their Ps and Qs come Friday. Borgia beat Sullivan 41-0 but led 6-0 at halftime. Sure, the Knights put together a good second half, but Sullivan walked away with the knowledge it could hang with Borgia. Belief and confidence are powerful tools on the football field.
“There's a challenge there, they have nothing to lose,” Gildehaus said. “Sullivan did good things and they are well coached.”
Even rematches that don't occur in consecutive weeks can be tough. For the second consecutive season, McCluer South-Berkeley (6-3) and Orchard Farm (5-4) will meet in both the regular season and postseason. The Bulldogs swept the pair last season, but it wasn't easy. Berkeley scored a 52-16 win in Week 2 and then had to scrap for a 26-15 win in Week 10.
“It's a tougher game,” Berkeley coach Howard Brown said.
Brown said he and his staff are going to use Friday's trip to Orchard Farm as a measuring stick. He wants to see how much the young Bulldogs have grown, matured and learned over the course of the fall. Orchard Farm beat Berkeley 37-26 on Sept. 7 in a matchup Brown labeled a test.
“And we flunked that test pretty bad,” Brown said. “Have we mentally improved since we last played them? Have we matured?”
That's why Markway needs his senior leadership to be at peak levels Saturday. Between the test in the morning and the win-or-go-home game in the afternoon with a team they just beat, it would be easy for the Crusaders to be distracted and discombobulated. Those are two things no one wants be this time of year.
“I trust our seniors,” Markway said. “It's going to test our maturity.”
GRID BITS
• St. Louis U. High has fielded a football team since 1916. In that time the Jr. Billikens have finished with one or fewer victories five times. The most recent of which was 1935.
This year SLUH avoided its second winless season when it rolled to a 47-0 victory over Vashon (1-8) on Saturday. The last time SLUH finished without a win came in 1916, its first year of football. Two years later SLUH didn't have a season because it didn't have a team due to the flu epidemic.
The eight losses the Jr. Billikens took this season ties them for the most in school history with the 1987 squad, the last coached by Paul Martel. The next season Gary Kornfeld took the reins.
SLUH will have a monumental challenge to avoid setting the school record for losses. The Jr. Billikens will play at No. 1 large school CBC (7-1) at 7 p.m. Friday in the first round of the Class 6 District 1 tournament. CBC has won 15 in a row against SLUH.
• The nation's longest winning streak ended Friday night, and with it so did Missouri's. Cassville scored 17 unanswered points in the second half including a game-winning field goal as time expired to beat Lamar 24-21 and end the Tigers 57-game win streak.
“I'm speechless,” Cassville sophomore kicker Drake Reese told the Ozark Sports Zone.
It was Reese's 37-yard field goal that gave Cassville (9-0) the Big 8 Conference championship and ended Lamar's strangle-hold on the league crown.
The reigning seven-time Class 2 state champion, Lamar (8-1) lost for the first time since Carl Junction squeaked out a 29-28 win on October 17, 2014.
Cassville had lost its previous five games with Lamar a combined 213-6.
Lamar begins postseason play Friday when it hosts Stockton (2-7). Lamar has won its last four meetings with Stockton a combined 231-25.
Maryland's Damascaus High School now holds the nation's longest win streak at 50 games.
Webb City has won 24 in a row for the longest active streak in Missouri.
CRYSTAL CITY BREAKS THROUGH
There was joy. There were tears.
There was, finally, sweet victory.
For the first time in more than two years, the Crystal City football team walked off the field winners Friday night. The Hornets outlasted Grandview 27-20 for the program's first road win since August 2016.
“They played hard,” Crystal City coach Dan Fox said. “It was the best they played all year.”
Crystal City (1-8) ended a streak of 18 consecutive losses. The program's last “win” came via forfeit when Grandview was unable to field team for their October 14, 2016 matchup. The last time the Hornets won on the field was the month prior when they beat Principia 26-12 at home, a streak that streak that reached 23 games.
Fox said a big part of Crystal City's breakthrough was its belief it could beat Grandview (0-9), a program that did not field a varsity team last season.
“For these kids they haven't had a lot of success,” Fox said. “A lot of it is mental.”
Fox is in his first season at Crystal City. He joined the program after serving as an assistant at Hillsboro. He was brought in to Crystal City in part to develop a weight training course that would benefit all the Hornets.
“We're trying to get the ball rolling,” he said.
Laying the foundation to rebuild a struggling football program is a long and arduous process. It might be just one win, but Crystal City took a significant step in its process with its victory.
“It helps to get that one win,” Fox said. “Just getting the kids to believe it's football, it's a grind.”
The Hornets were a happy bunch at the start of this week. But reality has set in. Crystal City begins the Class 1 District 1 tournament at Hayti. The No. 1 seed and No. 1 team in the Missouri Media's Class 1 poll, Hayti (9-0) is as challenge the Hornets know well. Hayti beat Crystal City 58-0 last year in the first round of district play.
Fox hopes his team, his underclassmen in particular, watch and learn from their opponent this week. And little of it has to do with Xs and Os.
“You can learn from a team like theirs,” Fox said. “You see how hard they work, how they execute, how intense they are.”
