FOOTBALL: Panthers finish 7-2, play at Bismarck in Round One
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[For the first time since the 1978 season, Pinckneyville's varsity football Panthers finished a regular season with seven victories on Friday, putting away Dupo 50-26 on Senior Night at Quillman Field.
The following night, the Panthers learned that their 7-2 record and Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference Mississippi Division title earned them a four-hour bus ride to Bismarck-Henning High School where they will face the Blue Devils (8-1) in round one of the IHSA Class 2A Playoffs, likely this Saturday afternoon.
"Other than the long distance, I think it's a good matchup for us," said Panthers' head coach Tod Rushing, making his third trip to the postseason with Pinckneyville.
"It'll be a good test. We're taking a longer trip this week than if we were playing in Champaign in week 14, so if we can get up there and take care of business and get this one we'll understand the travel thing and be prepared."
With all the 9-0 and 8-1 teams in 2A, the Panthers' hopes of a Mardi Gras-weekend home Playoff game were dashed, but the players weren't letting that take anything away from the accomplishment.
"It's all we've been working for ever since I've been little," said senior lineman Keegan Kellerman. "We've all been working hard, since our freshman year, it's all we've talked about."
"The last couple of years we didn't really have anybody to lead our team, the coaches tried, but the coaches can't do it by themselves. We had great leadership this year."
As for Friday's game, the Panthers looked like a team needing to stay healthy for the playoffs, resting a number of key players and giving their second and third team guys more looks with the game not having much, if any, impact on Pinckneyville's postseason positioning.
Bryant Shute again did not play on defense, but was under center until the Panthers had built a 14-0 lead with 9:27 left in the second quarter. Rushing had all but ruled out Cole Kellerman for Friday's game on Tuesday, but the big running back suited up for Senior Night and took 9 carries for 52 yards and a touchdown.
The night belonged to sophomore Colton Nelson who racked up 110 yards on 12 rushes and scored three touchdowns in relief of Shute at quarterback. Nelson has helped guide the Pinckneyville sophomore squad to an 8-0 mark so far this season, and saw a little action in week eight of the varsity game as Shute rested up.
"I was really pleased with our young guys and some of the guys that don't normally play as much, I thought they played well," Rushing said.
"It's good for two reasons, we get them some reps in case we have to fall back on them a little bit this year and more so, get them reps for the future. Colton (Nelson) has gotten a lot of reps the last two weeks at the varsity level and he's gotten exposed to how much faster the game is than at the sophomore level, so he knows a little more about what to look forward to when he's preparing this offseason."
In all, nine Panthers had rushing attempts against Dupo totaling 51 carries for a massive 416 yards giving Pinckneyville a regular season total of 2711 yards, nearly 1000 more than they have allowed on defense.
J.D. Conner (12-105), Ky Hamilton (5-61), Justin Hale (5-45), Justyn Rushing (4-35), Chase Lazenby (2-6), Daulton Hubler (1-5) and Shute (1-(-3)) also carried for PCHS against Dupo. Shute completed one pass before departing, an 11-yard toss to Hale.
Rushing said he expects Shute back at full strength for this weekend's playoff game, on both sides of the football. Shute, the Panthers leading rusher for the season with 745 yards, echoed that thought.
"It's healed a lot, I can run and everything now, so it should be ready to go," Shute said of his ankle, which was banged up during PCHS's week seven win at Du Quoin.
Pinckneyville's first round opponent, Bismarck-Hennig (8-1) went 5-4 in 2010 before losing out in round one of the 2A playoffs to Westville. This season, the Blue Devils' only loss came to unbeaten Vermilion Valley conference mate Sidell (Jamaica-Salt Fork Co-op) and their two non-conference wins came against Villa Grove (4-5) and Cerro Gordo (6-3) from the Little Okaw Valley.
Game date and time (traditionally Saturday afternoon) are to be announced on Monday, but Rushing said preparations will be like any other week, for the most part.
"Everything will be pretty much the same, except we'll probably have an extra day in there," Rushing said. "Monday will be our alignment day, talk about the other team, hopefully we can get some films changed tomorrow. We'll have another day Thursday to go a little harder, but this time of year, you don't need to do a lot of hitting, they know all that stuff."
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