By Greg Halbleib
The chance for Normal Community to claim the Big Twelve Conference football championship outright is the featured game of the WJBC Friday Night High School Football Extravaganza to conclude the regular season.
Playoff pairings will be announced Saturday evening and WJBC-AM 1230 and WJBC.com will host a Playoff Pairings Show from 7:05 p.m. to 9 p.m. Normal Community and Normal West will represent the Intercity in the postseason, joined by Heart of Illinois Conference schools Fieldcrest, Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley, Eureka, Tremont and Fisher. A Tri-Valley victory over Eureka on Friday would likely place the Vikings into the playoffs.
Prairie Central has clinched a playoff bid along with Illinois Valley Central and Tolono Unity from the Illini Prairie Conference, with a pair of 5-3 teams, Monticello and St. Joseph-Ogden, meeting Friday as a bid goes to the winner and the loser’s postseason fate is uncertain. Peoria Notre Dame and Peoria are in the postseason, but Danville needs to beat Notre Dame to clinch a spot.
Normal Community (7-1, 7-0 Big Twelve) tries to run the conference table in a regular season finale against Peoria (6-2, 6-1) at Peoria Stadium. NCHS coach Jason Drengwitz said the Ironmen can accomplish a number of goals in the contest.
“The first goal every year is to win a Big Twelve Conference title,” Drengwitz said. “We’ve clinched a share of it but like most competitors, teams and coaches, we don’t want to share a conference title, we want to win it outright. So we still have that goal in place and it’s kind of exciting to have that jumping-off point to get us prepared for the playoffs.”
Drengwitz said although Friday’s game is important, there’s still more football to play.
“We’re always looking to get better,” the second-year head coach said. “As week to week goes, you’re going to play better teams. We’re trying to improve in all three areas and we’re definitely not a finished product but we’re trying to get there.”
Live updates on the Extravaganza will also include Urbana (1-7, 1-6) at Normal West (6-2, 6-1 Big Twelve), Bloomington (3-5, 3-4 Big Twelve) at Champaign Centennial (0-8, 0-7), Tolono Unity (7-1, 7-1 Illini Prairie) at Central Catholic (3-5, 3-5) and Decatur Eisenhower (0-8, 0-8 Central State Eight) at U-High (2-6, 2-6). Scene-setters begin at 6:05 with updates every quarter hour and post-game until 11 p.m. Scores can also be found on the WJBC Sports Twitter feed (@SportsWJBC, #WJBCHSFB).
Week 9 schedule:
Big Twelve:
Normal Community at Peoria
Bloomington at Champaign Centennial
Peoria Notre Dame at Danville
Urbana at Normal West
Champaign Central at Peoria Manual
Illini Prairie:
Prairie Central at St. Thomas More (live WJEZ-FM 98.9 & WJEZ.com–click here to listen)
Illinois Valley Central at Olympia
Pontiac at Rantoul
St. Joseph-Ogden at Monticello
Tolono Unity at Central Catholic
Central State Eight:
Decatur Eisenhower at U-High
Rochester at Chatham Glenwood
Springfield at Jacksonville
Sacred Heart-Griffin at Decatur MacArthur
Springfield Lanphier at Springfield Southeast (Sat. 12 p.m.)
Heart of Illinois Large:
Tri-Valley at Eureka
Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley at Deer Creek-Mackinaw
Fieldcrest at El Paso-Gridley
Heart of Illinois Small:
Fisher at LeRoy
Tremont at Heyworth
Central Illinois:
Clinton at Warrensburg-Latham
Lincoln Prairie:
Argenta-Oreana at Blue Ridge
Sangamon Valley:
Paxton-Buckley-Loda at Dwight-Gardner-South Wilmington
Non-Conference:
Lincoln at Macomb
Ridgeview-Lexington at Nokomis (Sat. 1 p.m.)
Eight-Man:
Flanagan-Cornell-Wooddland at Rockford Christian Life
Sports Director Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected].
