FOOTBALL PREVIEW: Rangers-Panthers series has been a competitive one
The results of the Benton Rangers' first two varsity football games this season have a lot of people scratching their heads.
First, the Rangers knocked off last season's Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference Mississippi Division champions, the Carterville Lions, 20-13 with a big performance by their quarterback, Hamilton Page. The win opened some eyes and put the rest of the conference on notice that Benton is a force to be reckoned with.
Moving ahead to last Friday night, the Rangers suffered a setback, falling 27-13 to the Sparta Bulldogs, a 4-5 team a season ago that prior to 2014 had won just two games since 2008. Benton defeated Sparta 40-12 last year for one of their three victories.
That game also opened some eyes, but in a different way. Suddenly, Sparta is 2-0 and looking like a legitimate playoff contender after a brutally long drought.
Todd Thomas, the head coach for Benton's week three opponent, Pinckneyville, knows all about the improvements made to the Sparta football program. Bulldogs head coach Rob Kirk was an assistant under Thomas just two years ago. Sparta beat the Panthers 13-9 last season, their first win over Pinckneyville since 2000.
"Sparta is at the top of the conference this year," proclaimed Thomas. "They're extremely talented and they're doing a good job with those guys. They execute, their line blocks, their backs run hard. The quarterback can throw and they've got some receivers who can catch. They have a nice football team."
If what Thomas says is true, and Sparta is a threat to win the SIRR Mississippi Division, it more than explains what we saw from the Rangers over the course of the first two weeks.
In their week one victory over Carterville, Page torched the Lions for 120 yards rushing on 22 carries while adding 94 yards on 7-for-16 passing. Those numbers through the air included the game-winning touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.
But in week two, Sparta was ready for the sophomore signal caller. The Bulldogs held him without a completion in the first half and routinely forced three-and-out series on defense. Page did manage 133 yards on 10 second-half completions against a more conservative Sparta unit that was playing with a lead, but it wasn't nearly enough to prevent the Bulldogs' first win over the Rangers in over a decade.
While Benton held Carterville to 264 total yards in week one, Sparta was able to amass 375 yards in week two, 173 of those coming on quarterback Drew Kordys' 13-for-23 performance through the air.
Thomas is preparing for a charged-up, multi-faceted Benton team - whether the Panthers end up seeing one or not.
"They've got a young quarterback that's very athletic," said Thomas. "They've got (Mark) Torres who has started for three years. It'll be just like anything else, we're taking it week by week. They will challenge us in many different ways and we've just got to show up, have a sound defensive effort, keep the chains moving and try to control the time of possession on offense."
As for Thomas' squad, the Panthers will look to go 3-0 for the second straight season off the heels of a 10-0 road win over West Frankfort in week two. It wasn't pretty offensively for PCHS, but victories all look the same in the standings.
"That was probably the ugliest win I've been involved with as a coach, but I'll take it," Thomas said. "I'm proud of our kids. We came out and we played with a little grit and a little mental toughness. We were dead tired, they were dead tired, we just happened to make some plays and they didn't. A lot of times that's what it boils down to."
Defensively, however, Pinckneyville was often times impressive. They held the Redbirds out of the red zone for the entire second half and if not for a late-game, garbage-time touchdown by Red Bud in week one, the Panthers would have surrendered a mere seven points this season.
"(Assistant coach) Skip Heninger did a good job calling the game last week and picked up some tendencies," Thomas said. "Our hat's off to our defense."
"I am a defensive-minded coach. We spend as much time on defense as we do on offense. The offense struggled (against West Frankfort). All of our offensive guys play defense, I don't think we executed on offense because we were tired, but that's ok. As long as we can get a score, and we've got a kid that can kick a field goal if we get down there, as long as you play good defense you can win ball games."
The series between the Panthers and the Rangers has been a competitive one. Throwing out the forfeit victory for Pinckneyville in 2003, the current incarnation of the head-to-head series has Benton up 6-to-5 since 2004. The Rangers won five straight from 2008-2012, but the Panthers have won the last two, including last year's 28-0 shutout at Quillman Field in Pinckneyville.
This Friday night, Thomas says his focus is on execution and keeping his two-way players as fresh as possible.
"Priority number one is executing on offense," said Thomas. "We have to be very efficient in our rotations with our kids. We can't have any breakdowns on special teams, we've got to have the same type of effort - physically and mentally - that we had last week against West Frankfort.