MRH Hosts Park Hills Central for Homecoming

Park Hills Central football coach Kory Schweiss said he really doesn’t know how good of a team he has yet.

“We beat two teams that aren’t real good, and we lost to two (better) teams,” he said. 

On Friday, the Blue Devils will play the Rebels at for a homecoming game that is expected to be well-attended.

MRH coach Brandon Gregory was blunt about last week’s disappointing .

“To be honest with you, I think it came from conditioning,” he said. “When you’re tired and your mental game is not right, you’re going to drop the ball, you’re going to miss your assignment, so we’re going to take pride in getting in shape.

“I’m the track coach, so there shouldn’t be an excuse,” he said. “So this week, we’re going to pick up the intensity in practice, and get some more conditioning in. I think actually Ste. Gen had the edge on us with that and it showed on Friday.”

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Freshman Elijah Keely is MRH’s leading scorer with six touchdowns, and rusher with 334 yards in 41 carries. Junior quarterback Kahlid Hagens is second in rushing with 271 yards in 41 keepers. Hagens is 47-for-83 passing this season.

Schweiss said most of the time they run three backs on offense. “We’re kind of dinosaur-age type stuff. We like to think of ourselves as a power football team.”

He said they average eight to 10 passes a game with 300 yards rushing.

Park Hills features multiple backs, so there’s not one with outstanding numbers. Schweiss said Derrick Mitchell has close to 400 yards and three others are around 200.

On defense, Schweiss said, “obviously against Maplewood we’ll probably play a three-man front most of the time just because they’re a spread team.”

He doesn’t expect to be surprised. “It’s just a matter of whether we can execute. If we can match up with their speed.”

Schweiss said he had talked to the Ste. Genevieve coach, who said, “He doesn’t really know what to think of them, either,” Schweiss said. “He thought they were better than what they were.”

Park Hills was up early and gave it up at the end of the game last week, just like MRH against Ste. Genevieve, so Gregory figures they’re searching for a win, just like MRH.

“They think we’re a good team and we think they’re a good team, so both coaches are going to have both teams prepared,” he said. MRH beat the Rebels last year on the road, 41-6.

Gregory takes a long view of the season. “I can’t forget I’ve only got three seniors, so I knew it wasn’t going to be like last year,” he said.

“I knew each game, we’re playing younger guys stepping up into starting roles. We were going to take our bumps and bruises. But the ultimate goal is to win a state championship.

"So at the end of the day, if we can learn from these losses, learn from our mistakes and pull it all together at the end, we should be fine,” Gregory said.

Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at MRH.