By Greg Halbleib

The second round of the high school football playoffs has plenty of local flavor with six area squads still alive, and four games live on WJBC.com.

Play-by-play includes Normal Community at Chicago Mt. Carmel at 11:45, Shelbyville at Tri-Valley at 12:45, Normal West at New Lenox Providence Catholic at 1:45 and Central Catholic at Williamsville also at 1:45. All broadcasts can be found here.

Tri-Valley will host Shelbyville Saturday afternoon at 1:00 in a second round Class 2A playoff match-up. Coach Josh Roop believes his Vikings are a much different team that the one that lost in the opening week of the season to Decatur St. Teresa.

“I think getting guys in the right positions. We’ve got a lot of guys playing a lot of different positions from where they were in Week 1,” Roop said. “It’s just their commitment to buying in and getting better every week.”

Normal West coach Darren Hess has a simple game plan in Saturday’s Class 6A second round game in New Lenox against Providence Catholic.

“We’ve got to maintain that line of scrimmage,” Hess said. “For us to be effective offensively, we’re going to have to utilize our speed on the perimeter, get that ball out there and make sure they can do what they can do one on one.”

Normal Community coach Wes Temples has the keys to Saturday’s Class 7A second round game against Mount Carmel in Chicago.

“They’re kind of a ground and pound, they run the clock dry and they just try to wear on you,” Temples said. “Obviously for us offensively, when we get an opportunity we’ve got to put points on the board. Defensively, we’ve got to get some stops. We can’t turn the ball over. We’ve got to play it clean.”

Central Catholic coach Mike Moews is gearing his Saints for a physical undefeated Williamsville on Saturday in a Class 3A second round game.

“I think we can still run the ball like we normally do,” Moews said. “Whether or not we hit it big like we have all season, and working with (quarterback) Max (Moews) to stay patient and take what they give you.”

Two other Heart of Illinois Conference squads are still alive in the second round in Class 2A as El Paso-Gridley visits Knoxville and Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley ventures to Savanna to face West Carroll.

WJBC-AM 1230 will also have a post-game Extravaganza at about 3:30 p.m. after ISU football featuring scores, interviews and bonus play-by-play. Updates can also be found on Twitter (@SportsWJBC).

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].