Crim: Playoff positioning, record-setting efforts add intrigue to final week of regular season

QUINCY — The final week of the high school football regular season has arrived.

Quincy High School, Quincy Notre Dame and Camp Point Central have all clinched league championships in Illinois and are on the cusp of securing home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Clarence Cannon Conference title is still up for grabs in Missouri.

Macomb punched a playoff ticket with its sixth win Friday night and Illini West won for the fifth straight time after opening the season with three losses to become playoff eligible. After a tough loss to state-ranked Calhoun, Brown County can reach five wins by beating Pleasant Hill this week to become eligible.

Missouri teams will be jockeying for district seedings in the final week.

• QHS closes its regular season Friday with its first meeting against Capital City, a member of the Central Missouri Activities Conference, in Jefferson City, Mo.

The Cavaliers are 6-2 after scoring two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to pull away from CMAC foe Camdenton 28-14 last Friday night. Their losses have come against two state-ranked teams ahead of them in the league standings — Columbia Rock Bridge (25-13) and Jefferson City Helias (33-0).

Rock Bridge is ranked ninth in Class 6 and Helias, which beat Hannibal 31-20 in Week 1, is tied for fourth in Class 5. Capital City was ranked as high as sixth in Class 5 after opening the season with three wins before sliding out of the poll following the loss to Helias in Week 6.

The Cavaliers are averaging nearly 31 points and 250 rushing yards per game. They went 8-4 last season, losing to Helias for a second time in the district title game.

• The Blue Devils continue to rewrite record books.

With his 424-yard passing performance Friday, senior Bradyn Little is 268 yards shy of second place on the Illinois High School Association all-time list with 9,484. His 21 completions (on 23 attempts) give him 610 for his career, fourth-best in IHSA history. He needs nine more to move into third place and 18 to reach second.

Senior Tykell Hammers eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark with his QHS single-game record 225 receiving yards against Geneseo. He now has 1,051 receiving yards, five short of Adon Byquist’s single-season school record of 1,056 set last year.

Hammers, who held the QHS career records for reception, yardage and touchdowns entering the season, needs 266 yards to become the program’s first career 3,000-yard receiver. He has 179 catches for 2,734 yards and 30 TDs.

Running back Jeraius Rice Jr. continues to close in on the No. 2 mark on the school’s all-time rushing list. His season-high 141 rushing yards against Geneseo pushed his career total to 3,493, just 31 yards behind second place Malique Robbins. Rice has scored at least three touchdowns in four straight games and has scored at least one receiving touchdown in every game this season.

• QND will carry a seven-game winning streak into its finale on the road against Decatur MacArthur, its longest since winning seven in a row after a season-opening loss to Rockford Lutheran in 2014. That team finished 8-3.

The Raiders won their first 11 games in 2009 before losing to Rochester in the state quarterfinals.

MacArthur is 2-6 after suffering its fourth consecutive loss, 53-13 to Jacksonville. The Generals’ victories have come against Mattoon (47-6) in Week 1 and Decatur Eisenhower (55-12) in Week 4.

A stingy defense, an opportunistic offense and stellar special team play have been constants for QND. The defense has allowed just 65 points during the winning streak. Meanwhile, the Raiders have scored 35 or more points five times.

• The Clarence Cannon Conference race could end in a three-way tie for first place.

Centralia, with a non-conference game against Kirksville remaining, already has finished its league schedule with a 5-1 record. Both defending champion South Shelby and Monroe City can match that mark this week by beating sub-.500 teams Palmyra and Macon, respectively.

The logjam is the product of South Shelby beating Monroe City 44-22 in Week 3, Monroe City scoring 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to squeak past Centralia 36-34 in Week 4 and Centralia holding South Shelby scoreless until the final period in toppling the Cardinals 28-14 in Week 7.

Such a tie would be rare but not unprecedented in a conference that dates to 1945.

Louisiana, Macon and Palmyra all beat each other – all on the road, no less – to finish with just one CCC loss each in 1972. (All three teams finished 9-1 overall, with Louisiana getting the lone playoff nod in the days before district play.) In 1987, Monroe City, Centralia, Palmyra and Louisiana finished atop the standings with two losses apiece.

• It has been a disappointing finish to the regular season for Palmyra, which won three of its first four games after winning just twice combined in 2022 and 2023.

The Panthers have dropped four straight, including narrow home losses to North Callaway (18-12) and CCC foe Clark County (34-28 in overtime), which entered that Week 7 contest winless. And they will be an underdog against South Shelby.

Palmyra trailed Centralia 14-6 at halftime Friday, only to surrender 30 straight points in the second half to eventually fall 44-12.

• Mark Twain, which entered the season with hopes of an above-.500 finish, snapped a six-game losing streak to earn its second victory in a rare Thursday night game, beating Louisiana 24-6.

Three losses have come by a combined 12 points. After knocking off Highland 32-14 in the opener, the Tigers suffered a 10-6 setback to state-ranked Salisbury. Two other narrow misses came against Eastern Missouri Conference opponents Van-Far (28-26) and North Callaway (26-20).

Mark Twain closes the regular season against Bowling Green, which saw its 35-game regular-season winning streak snapped by Valle Catholic, 42-20, in a game matching the second- and third-ranked teams in Class 2.

The defeat was only the fourth in 47 games for the Bobcats overall since the start of the 2021 season. Centralia handed them their last regular-season loss, 24-22 on Oct. 9, 2020.