The week eight high school football fixtures includes two big games, with old rivals Roxana and East Alton-Wood River meeting in the Riverbender.com Game of the Week, while Edwardsville travels to East St. Louis in another big game and Alton goes to O'Fallon in a bounce-back game. The Roxana-East Alton-Wood River game will be live on Riverbender.com.
In addition to those three games, the schedule will have Mascoutah playing at Highland, Civic Memorial at Jersey, Waterloo will be at Triad, Quincy Notre Dame Catholic is at Granite City, Carlinville will be hosting Greenville, Champaign Centennial is at Collinsville, Piasa Southwestern is at Hillsboro, Beardstown is at Hardin Calhoun, Greenfield Northwestern is at Mt. Sterling Brown County, Mendon Unity hosts Carrollton, Concord Triopia goes to Pleasant Hill, Camp Point Central is at White Hall North Greene and Winchester West Central goes to Jacksonville Routt Catholic. On Saturday afternoon, Marquette Catholic goes to Bloomington Central Catholic in a 1 p.m. kickoff.
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The Oilers go into the Cahokia Conference Mississippi Division clash with the Shells at 6-1, clinching a playoff berth last week with a 26-20 win at Freeburg, while Roxana fell at Breese Central 20-13 and are now 4-3, needing to win one of its last two games to become playoff eligible. The Shells conclude the regular season next week at home against Marquette, while EAWR plays at Red Bud.
Quarterback Chris Wallack leads a good Roxana offense that features a strong running game with backs Terrell Graves and Nik Ward and receiver Andruw Ellis. The Oilers counter with quarterback Miguel Romero, who's 12-of-24 passing for 171 yards and a touchdown. EAWR's bread and butter is a very powerful ground game, with Seth Slayden running for 1,106 yards and 15 touchdowns, among the leaders in the St. Louis area. He's supported by Romero, who's run for 310 yards and three touchdowns and Ryan Morton-Burch, who had 254 yards and four touchdowns. When the Oilers do throw the ball, it's usually caught by Jakob Gerber, who has four catches for 70 yards and a touchdown.
The Redbirds are currently 1-6 after losing to the Flyers last Friday, but the team keeps working hard and has show much resilience this season. Quarterback Graham McAfoos is 54-of-105 passing for 598 yards and four touchdowns, while running for 116 yards and two touchdowns. Keith Gilchrese is the leading runner for Alton with 319 yards and three touchdowns, while Gardell Ballinger III had 113 yards on the ground and a touchdown. Byron Stampley, Jr. leads the receivers with 22 catches for 267 yards and a pair of touchdowns, with Gilchrese having 11 receptions for 112 yards and a touchdown and William Harris has caught eight passes for 107 yards and a touchdowns.
