Hard to believe we are already into the back half of the 2018 high school football season, but here we are, heading to Week 6. The weather is certainly making us feel the chill of fall, after a scorching hot Thursday football Friday revealed a cool, crisp, nearly perfect autumn evening - perfect for another fall tradition, Xavier rolling over their district foes on the gridiron.
The Saints scored their 18th straight win (a new school record) and ran their all-time Class 3A district record to 26-1 with a convincing 41-0 win over Maquoketa. It was also Xavier's 32nd consecutive regular-season win, stretching all the way back to a loss to Iowa City Regina in 2014. The Saints never really had that much trouble with the Cardinals, scoring on their first four possessions and adding an interception return TD by Bryson Bastian to lead 28-0 at the end of the first quarter and 35-0 at halftime. Meanwhile, Maquoketa started the game with a decent drive but managed only two more first downs the rest of the first half.
With a continuous clock in the entire second half, there wasn't much time to move the ball, and the Cardinals got only two first downs in that half as well. Xavier's Ben Conrad kicked two field goals, including a school-record-tying 48 yarder, and that lifted the Saints past 40 points for the fifth time in five games. Xavier has now had the continuous clock running in all five games this year, three times for the entire second half and once for the entire fourth quarter - that's 90:13 of game time running with a continuous clock (over 75% of all their second-half time this year). I don't imagine anybody keeps records for an esoteric stat like that, but I do know the 2012 Saints had 104:38 of continuous clock during that season. That's over nine games. This year's team is closing in on that through five. Amazing.
Chances are the Saints will blow past that 104:38 time this week when Dubuque Wahlert comes to town. Wahlert, like Maquoketa, is winless on the season, and hasn't really competed in any of their games. The Golden Eagles are hapless on the ground, rushing for less than 25 yards a game, and have given up a monstrous 426 yards per game on defense. The one slightly bright spot for Wahlert is their passing game, as Bryce Osterberger has been tossing the football around to a bunch of receivers for nearly 200 yards per game, but they've still been outscored 232-60 on the season. I really don't think Xavier will have much trouble controlling both sides of the ball.
Things do get more interesting after that. Western Dubuque, perhaps the strongest contender for Xavier in District 4, faces the Saints on October 5. The 4-1 Bobcats are that "1" in Xavier's 26-1 district record, spoiling the Saints' homecoming back in 2014 with a 7-6 win - and guess what, October 5 will be homecoming for the Saints again. Hmm .. That game will go a long way towards determining this year's district title, I think. Anyway, the regular season winds down for Xavier with road games at Center Point-Urbana and at Marion, two teams who still have playoff hopes if things break their way over the last four games. Marion, for one, is battle-tested, having lost excruciatingly close games against West Delaware and Clear Creek-Amana and holding on to win a wild one against CPU last week.
So, another notch in Xavier's cap, and a struggling Wahlert team coming up this Friday. Stay tuned, though ...
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