EDWARDSVILLE – Belleville East travels to Edwardsville on Friday night for a critical week seven game which will go a long way in determining the Southwestern Conference champion and the league’s automatic IHSA playoff berth as the local high school football season enters the stretch run.
This week’s schedule, with all games played on Friday night, starting at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted, has the Lancers playing at the Tigers, Roxana going to Breese Central, Jersey is at Mascoutah, O’Fallon plays at Belleville West, Cahokia visits Centralia, East Alton-Wood River visits Freeburg, Triad visits Highland in a rivalry game, Sparta is at Carlyle, Staunton visits Litchfield, Carlinville is at Greenville, Salem visits Columbia, Mt. Vernon is at Granite City, Marion visits Collinsville, Perryville, Mo., visits Marquette Catholic, Alton plays at East St. Louis, Belleville Althoff Catholic is at Breese Mater Dei Catholic, Waterloo is at Civic Memorial.
Also, Piasa Southwestern is at Virden North Mac, Pleasant Hill is at Hardin Calhoun, Carrollton visits Greenfield Northwestern in a 7:30 p.m kickoff, White Hall North Greene is at Winchester West Central, Mendon Unity is at Beardstown, Concord Triopia is at Camp Point Central, Jacksonville Routt catholic is at Mt. Sterling Brown County, and in this week eight-man game, Palestine is at Metro-East Lutheran, with the Knights needing to win to keep their playoff hopes alive. Madison plays at Bridgeport Red Hill on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
Edwardsville used its defense to take a 42-0 win at Alton last week, while the Lancers won at home last week over O’Fallon 36-10 Quarterback Kingston Jones is 64-of-126 passing for 725 yards and eight touchdowns, while Jaedon Beamon has run for 518 yards and six touchdowns, and James Johnson is the leading receiver with 20 catches for 352 yards and four touchdowns.
The Tigers’ Yale Weaver is 55-of-97 passing for 561 yards and nine touchdowns, also rushing for 67 yards. Edwardsville has a strong one-two ground game in Steven Moore, Jr.., who’s run for 607 yards and seven touchdowns, and Gavin Yates, who has added 270 yards and two scores. The team’s top receivers are Devyon Hill-Lomax, who had caught 15 passes for 288 yards and four touchdowns, and Jack Weaver, who has 15 receptions for 154 yards.
West is 3-3 going in after losing to East Side last week 55-10, and will look to get back on track against the Panthers, with quarterback Bernard Chapman, Jr. currently 48-of-92 passing for 993 yards and nine touchdowns, with Isaiah Williams the leading rusher with 288 yards and two touchdowns, while Nicholas Hankins leads the receiving corps with 14 catches for 461 yards and four touchdowns.
