High school football regular season closes with playoff seeds on line

Posted on October 18, 2018
Normal Community hosts Peoria in the featured game of the WJBC Friday Night Extravaganza to conclude the regular season. (WJBC file photo)

By Greg Halbleib

Although several area high school football squads have already earned playoff berths, the regular season finales this weekend will still determine where they will be placed in the postseason brackets.

Normal Community (7-1, 7-0 Big Twelve) is in the playoff picture as the Ironmen host Peoria (4-4, 4-3), but NCHS coach Jason Drengwitz says there’s plenty on the line in Friday’s game in Normal that is featured on the WJBC Friday Night Extravaganza.

“Number One, we know Peoria High is a talented and well-coached team playing for their playoff lives,” Drengwitz said. “We also want to win a Big Twelve Conference title outright which is always our first and main goal. Finally, if we go 8-1 it guarantees we get a chance to play at home in the playoffs.”

The Extravaganza also features coverage of Champaign Centennial (2-6, 2-5 Big Twelve) at Bloomington (6-2, 5-2), Normal West (7-1, 6-1 Big Twelve) at Urbana (0-8, 0-7), Central Catholic (0-8) at Tolono Unity (3-5), Eureka (7-1, 3-1 Heart of Illinois Large) at Tri-Valley (5-3, 3-1) and Fisher (7-1, 4-0 Heart of Illinois Small) at LeRoy (4-4, 4-0) for the Heart of Illinois Conference Small Division title.

U-High (1-7) concludes the season on Saturday at 1 p.m. against Decatur Eisenhower (0-8) at Frank Lindsay Field at Millikin University. The game can be heard by clicking here at this link on WJBC.com beginning at 12:45 p.m.

The Friday Night Extravaganza begins at 6:10 p.m. with scene-setters followed by updates every quarter hour and post-game interviews and analysis until 11 p.m. Scores and previews can also be found on the WJBC Sports Twitter feed (@SportsWJBC, #WJBCHSFB).

Greg Halbleib can be reached at [email protected]. 

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