The Salem Wildcats saw their 4-game win streak snapped, and their season come to an end at Mascoutah last night by a final of 31-18. Indians phenom Matt Milton finished with over 200 yards of total offense, including 170 on the ground, and added 3 touchdowns to lead his team to a 5-4 mark. Mascoutah will now wait to see if they have enough points to get into the playoffs that begin next week.
Salem and Mascoutah each rushed for well over 300 yards on the night. After a scoreless first quarter, Salem took a 6-0 lead on a touchdown run by Kory Kloppedal from 17 yards out, the extra point was blocked. Mascoutah would get 3 points back on a 31 yard field goal from Jordan Pollman to cut the lead in half to 6-3. With 4 minutes left to go in the first half, Mascoutah turned on the jets as Logan Wager capped off a 74 yard drive with a 20 yard touchdown with the extra point to make the score 10-7. The home team wasn’t done as they would add another 15 yard touchdown run, this time from Milton to make the lead 17-6 home team at the break.
Salem would come out and go 75 yards on two plays on their first possession of the second half, as Jace Hall would break off a 70 yard TD run to cut the lead to 17-12. But Mascoutah would score on a two-play drive themselves, with Milton taking it the final 71 yards for his 2nd touchdown of the night. He would add a 1-yard run early in the fourth quarter.
Salem finishes at 4-5, a long way from the 0-4 start early in the season. And with a core of young sophomores and juniors coming back next year with a load of experience from this campaign, the future definitely looks bright for the Salem Wildcats.
Also from the Apollo, 3rd ranked Mt. Zion finished the regular season unbeaten after taking care of Civic Memorial 41-15. Effingham finished off an 8-1 season with a 35-8 win at Taylorville. Charleston got past Highland in double overtime 32-31. The rest of the conference suffered a loss, Massac County routed Olney 53-20, Mt. Carmel the same with Robinson 43-14 and Mater Dei shut out Newton 44-0.
Later today, the Centralia Orphans will honor their seniors this afternoon ahead of a 1pm start against Jacksonville. Coach Ray Kauling is looking for an upset in his final game to end the season like it began, with a win. Centralia enters at 1-7 and will limp into the finale with several key injuries. Also today, Mt. Vernon travels to Geneseo.
Area Scoreboard:
- Althoff 12 Triad 7
- Anna-Jonesboro 23 Benton 0
- Belleville East 22 Collinsville 20
- Breese Central 21 Pinckneyville 6
- Breese Mater Dei 44 Newton 0
- Carlinville 39 Litchfield 20
- Carmi White County 48 Eldorado 20
- Casey-Westfield 53 Lawrenceville 0
- Charleston 32 Highland 31 (2OT)
- Chester 21 Dupo 7
- DuQuoin 49 Murphysboro 0
- East St. Louis 62 Granite City 18
- Edwardsville 34 Belleville West 31 (OT)
- Effingham 35 Taylorville 8
- Flora 48 Edwards County 2
- Greenville 26 Vandalia 7
- Harrisburg 21 Carbondale 7
- Hillsboro 24 Pana 7
- Marion 30 Herrin 14
- Marshall 26 Red Hill 7
- Mascoutah 31 Salem 18
- Massac County 53 Olney 20
- Mt. Carmel 43 Robinson 14
- Mt. Zion 41 Civic Memorial 15
- Nashville 28 Columbia 21
- O'Fallon 28 Alton 6
- PORTA 37 Staunton 14
- Southwestern 28 Alton Marquette 7
- Red Bud 41 Sparta 0
- Roxana 39 Wood River 0
- Sesser-Valier-Waltonville-Woodlawn 27 Johnston City 26
- Sacred Heart-Griffin 20 Cahokia 6
- Waterloo 42 Lincoln 0
