Terrier football Terriers on a roll going into Althoff game

After crushing South Seven foe Mt. Vernon by 47 points last Friday 61-14, the Carbondale Terriers football team must look out for a letdown tonight as they bus to the St. Louis metro area to battle Belleville Althoff.

The now 5-1 Terriers are 2-1 in South Seven play. But Althoff is an improving squad that is also 2-1 in conference after giving top dog Marion (3-0) an unexpected tussle but losing by a touchdown (42-35 Marion).

"We better be ready for Belleville," Terriers coach Bryan Lee said after his team's victory at the Rams' home field last week. "We need to beat Althoff for the game against Marion to mean anything as far as a South Seven championship."

Indeed. Since Carbondale only has Althoff and Marion left in conference play, nothing will suffice except a sweep of both. Hopefully the Carbondale team that stepped off the bus and stepped on the Rams' neck last Friday will show up for the next two games.

The Terriers ran up 550 yards against the seemingly defenseless Rams. The Terriers had 331 of those yards on the ground on only 35 team carries. Sophomore sensation Gabe Hilliard glided, spun and bullied his way for 219 of those yards. Carbondale quarterback Darius Ragland had 69 yards on the ground but was mostly busy passing the ball.

Ragland also had 227 yards through the air for an efficient four touchdowns. All the while, the Terriers' defense had another workman-like performance on the other side of the ball.

"I love Gabe Hilliard. He never complains, and there is no showboating," said Lee. "His performance was nice after our team's performance against Cahokia."

A poor performance was not a problem against Mt. Vernon. The Terriers were never stopped in double-digit possessions against the Rams. Carbondale never had to punt the entire evening.

"We made adjustments that we (coaches) never made last week in our loss to Cahokia," said Lee. "But the Comanches were hard to adjust to. Their D-line was probably the best we will see this year."

Mt. Vernon had two great players but not a great team. Running back Evan Leake was rather hard to handle. Even without a properly blocking offensive line in front of him, he still scooted for 68 yards. The Rams' quarterback, Hunter Simmons, was also a problem. He hit only eight of 19 pass attempts but had two touchdowns in the game.

But those two Rams were not enough. Football is a team game, and Carbondale has a championship type of team this season.