By Greg Halbleib
An Intercity match-up that ends a long coaching career highlights the final week of the local high school football season.
Normal West (5-3, 3-2) visits Bloomington (2-6, 2-3 Big Twelve) in the final game for Rigo Schmelzer after 23 years as head coach of the host Purple Raiders.
“We have a chance to finish with the last two games being victories,” said Schmelzer, “and the chance to try to show we’re a pretty decent club albeit we didn’t start the way we wanted to. It’s important for the seniors to play well and it’s also important for the underclassmen to build for next year.”
West coach Darren Hess is preparing his Wildcats for an Intercity rivalry game at Bloomington. “It’s definitely a bragging rights kind of game,” said Hess. “We’re going to have our hands full. They are big and physical. (Telly) Arrington is definitely a great running back, they have a good fullback as well, and defensively they just shut out Danville.”
Normal Community (7-1, 5-1) steps out of the Big Twelve Conference by hosting Rich Central (6-2) from the Chicago suburbs.
“Offensively they’re about 50-50,” said Ironmen coach Wes Temples of Friday’s opponent. “They try to run the ball with most of their passes short screens. They’re incredibly athletic. Last year we played them and did not tackle well. It was a battle up through halftime when we made some adjustments. It boils down to the same thing every week—we have to take care of the football.”
Central Catholic (7-1) hosts Macomb (3-5) in an effort to improve playoff seeding.
“I equate them to a team like Eureka,” said Saints coach Mike Moews. “They’re primarily an ‘I’ team but real tight with belly, dives and counter. They have two backs that run hard and get to the line of scrimmage quick so we’ve really got to be explosive off the defensive line.”
A win would give CCHS its 500th in its history.
U-High (6-2) faces a Week 9 test at Moline (4-4) with a 7:30 kick-off at Browning Field. Visiting Pioneers coach Mike Troll is preparing for a typical Quad Cities offense.
“We have to make a couple of adjustments especially with Augustana’s wing-T, and they will attack anything that’s misread as a potential big play for them, so we will have to be very disciplined in what we execute,” Troll said.
The Country Financial Extravaganza also travels to a Heart of Illinois Conference battle as Heyworth (2-6) visits El Paso-Gridley (5-3). Pre-game begins at 6:10 with updates on all games every quarter hour and post-game until 11 p.m. Scores can be found on the WJBC Facebook page and the special Friday night Twitter feed (@WJBCHSFootball, #WJBCHSFB).
Illinois State volleyball will host Missouri Valley Conference leader Wichita State at 7 p.m. on WJBC.com. Listen here.
The Bloomington Thunder play the Sioux Falls Stampede at U.S. Cellular Coliseum. Listen here.
