Week 8 high school football: West hopes to grab Big Twelve 2nd place alone

Posted on October 11, 2018

By Greg Halbleib

A match-up of teams tied for the runner-up spot in the Big Twelve Conference highlights the Week 8 WJBC Friday Night High School Football Extravaganza.

Normal West (6-1, 5-1 Big Twelve) hosts Champaign Central (5-2, 5-1) at 7 p.m. Friday. Both teams are one game behind Normal Community in the conference standings. West has won five straight games while the visiting Maroons are on a four-game winning streak.

Although the host Wildcats already clinched a playoff spot last week, coach Nathan Fincham said the team has unfinished business.

“All off-season we were talking about how last year we didn’t finish like we should have,” Fincham said. “We had a great opportunity to go 8-1 last year and we ended up going 7-2, losing our last game of the year. That’s been our focus these last few weeks to take one game at a time and do everything we can to give ourselves a chance to be 8-1 at the end of the year.”

The remaining Intercity games are included in the Week 8 Extravaganza. Illinois Valley Central (3-4) travels to Central Catholic (0-7), Springfield (4-3) visits U-High (1-6), Normal Community (6-1, 6-0 Big Twelve) goes to Champaign Centennial (2-5, 2-4) and Bloomington (5-2, 4-2 Big Twelve) travels to Peoria (4-3, 4-2).

The Extravaganza begins at 6:10 p.m. Friday on AM 1230 WJBC and WJBC.com. Updates from all games are every quarter-hour with post-game until 11 p.m. Scores and other preview information can be found on the WJBC Sports Twitter feed (@SportsWJBC, #WJBCHSFB).

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].

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