With three weeks left to go in the high school football regular season, many teams are still jockeying for postseason position.
A handful of southern Illinois teams -- five to be exact (Fairfield, Marion, Du Quoin, Nashville and Benton) -- are still perfect on the season and a little closer to home, Eldorado is looking to stay at home during the playoffs and Harrisburg is looking to play with pride as the Bulldogs close out the year.
Eldorado (3-2) cannot afford to lose another Black Diamond Conference game if the Eagles want to keep a four-year streak of hosting a first round game at Boz Adams Field in check.
EHS will take on Carmi-White County (3-2) Friday night in a "Black Out For Cancer" game at the Sports Complex. Eldorado has won the last two meetings against CWC, but are 5-12 since 2003 against Carmi.
Eldorado comes in having given up just 85 points on the season, 56 of which have come in the last two weeks, where the Eagles have been beat by Sesser-Valier-Waltonville and Hamilton County.
Eldorado, with a game at Christopher-Zeigler-Royalton (1-4) next week and two home games against Edwards County (2-3) and Fairfield (5-0) to close out the season, would essentially have to run the table to host a first round game.
It's a statistic that doesn't concern EHS head coach Joe Clark as much as ending a two-week streak of losses.
"We've summarized a lot these last two weeks and had to piece the puzzle together a little bit," Clark said. "We feel good about things and obviously we're looking at running the ball and take advantage of the passing game when it's there. We've got to play more solid defense and not give up the big play, but from there, just see how things unfold."
Harrisburg at Benton
Harrisburg was all but eliminated from playoff conversation after their 46-21 loss to Massac County last week.
The Bulldogs are 0-4 on the season, minus a non-game for the Week 3 bye and look to play spoiler to Benton who is a perfect 5-0 overall and 2-0 in league play.
One feather in Harrisburg's hat is that they are 14-10 over the Rangers since 1996 and won last year's meeting 34-32 at Taylor Field.
Benton has given up the fewest points through five weeks this season, only allowing 15, while the Bulldogs have given up the most in the conference -- 175.
Benton also has the second most points scored at 191, while Harrisburg is just ahead of Herrin (55) with 62 points.
Spyder Dann covers prep and college sports for the Southern Illinois Local Media News Group. Follow him on Twitter: @spydieshooter.
