The March Continues

Xavier’s streak lives on, as the Saints won their 21st consecutive game (and 35th straight regular season game) with a 41-0 shutout of Center Point-Urbana. The victory sets up the final game of the season between Xavier (8-0, 4-0 in D-4) and Marion (4-4, 3-1 in the district). Xavier wins the district outright with a win (that would be their fifth straight district title in Class 3A) while Marion gets at least a share of the championship and a playoff spot if they win (couple a win by Marion with a Western Dubuque loss to Maquoketa and Marion is the champion).

Xavier rolled over CPU without much difficulty, scoring on all six first-half possessions and starting the continuous clock for the eighth time with a third-quarter touchdown. That touchdown was special ... Braden Stovie had a chance to carry the ball in, but went down at the 2. On the next play, Quinn Schulte tossed a scoring pass to Kyle Thompson, a player who means a lot to the Saints. Thompson is a converted lineman who has spent his years working away on the scout team, and it obviously pleased the Xavier side for him to get a score. The players on the field (and the Xavier coaches next to me in the booth) celebrated that quite a bit.

Schulte had another big game, with 200+ yards passing for the second straight week. Perhaps the best drive was in the second quarter, when a nice CPU punt had Xavier backed up at the 1. Schulte threw three consecutive passes to Kyle Moeder, covering the entire 99 yards and ending with a 27-yard TD pass. The defense put up their fourth shutout of the year (and could have had two more, with late scores by Regina and Dubuque Wahlert coming against the scout defense). The Saints added four or five sacks, too ... Jon Bell leads D-4 with six (officially, although I think he’s got eight or nine) and Kyle Krezek has five (again, at least).

I’ve been a little slack in my usual tracking of potential school records, so let me rectify that a bit. Ben Conrad booted two field goals against CPU (including a 45-yarder at the end of the first half), making him 9 for 10 on field goal attempts. Those nine kicks equal the school record for field goals in a regular season (Ryan Persick in 2012), so another one this week sets a new mark. Conrad already has surpassed the school record for kicking points in a regular season, with 72 going into Friday night (61 was the old mark, again by Persick). Meanwhile, Schulte is on the precipice of breaking Will Martin’s 2006 record for rushing touchdowns in the regular season. Schulte has 16, one behind Martin’s total.

So this Friday brings the end of the regular season and the beginning of the postseason. Xavier is, I think, assured of a playoff spot regardless of what happens Friday - with a win they’ll have one of the top 3 RPIs in the class, probably, which means they’d host the first two rounds of the playoffs. The only way they go on the road for the first round is a loss to Marion plus a Maquoketa win over Western Dubuque, which is vanishingly unlikely. Who will the opponent be? Well ... the 3A field is going to be stacked. Xavier, Solon, and Lewis Central are likely to be undefeated; Sergeant Bluff-Luton, Sioux City Heelan, Waverly-Shell Rock, North Scott, Clear Creek-Amana, Oskaloosa, and Pella could all be 8-1. That’s 10 teams out of 16 with one loss or fewer (the rest of the field looks to be Decorah, Western Dubuque, and Harlan at 7-2, then Norwalk, Carroll, and Spencer all at 6-3). Given the restrictions of RPI seeding, who gets home field, and geography, Xavier’s first-round opponent could very well be ...

Pella. Yep, a rematch of last year’s championship game is certainly a possibility for the first round, and considering Pella’s only loss came by one point in overtime to Oskaloosa, that’s a dangerous foe to start the playoffs with. But we will see. Pairings should be out in the early morning hours Saturday.

EDIT ABOUT RECORDS: For some reason, the list of Xavier records I have is a little wonky ... it showed Ryan Persick with the regular season records of 9 field goals and 49 extra points, but it also showed his regular season kicking-points record as 61. When that total of kicks above is 76. So I must have messed up in filling out my record sheet sometime ...

Anyway - Conrad's 9 field goals through 8 games do appear to set a new Xavier regular season record (it looks like the previous regular season record was 6, not 9). Also, his 72 kicking points sets a new record (61 was indeed the previous mark, as Persick had just 4 regular season field goals in 2012). Persick is the only Xavier kicker to make more than 9 field goals in any season, including playoffs - he had 10 in 2012 and 12 in 2013. Conrad is certainly within striking range, particularly if the Saints go well into the playoffs. Conrad's 45 extra points are 4 behind Persick's regular season record of 49, with one game yet to go.

Career-wise Conrad has 153 kicking points; Persick's outstanding years in 2012-13 (plus one field goal in 2011) gives him a total of 189, so he's 36 points behind with a potential five games left to play. Conrad also has five field goals of 40 yards or more, including a 47-yarder last year and 45- and 48-yarders this season.