Published on October 2, 2026 12:42 am
Last Updated on October 2, 2026 12:42 am
One last regular season road trip awaits the Effingham High School football squad as it prepares for Friday night’s Apollo Conference matchup in Mt. Zion.
The Braves (4-2, 2-1 Apollo) most recently played at Charleston, clobbering the Trojans by a 63-14 final. It was their most prolific scoring performance of the campaign … although not by as much as you might imagine. A season opening 54-6 decision at Limestone is a close second.
Effingham (1-5, 1-2 Apollo) is coming off a 47-0 Homecoming defeat at the hands of top-ranked 5A squad Mahomet-Seymour. After coming up without points on their first possession of the night, the Bulldogs went on to tally 27 in the first quarter and never look back.
Mt. Zion has outscored opponents 166-34 in the three victories it actually contested; a forfeit win over Decatur Eisenhower makes four wins this fall for the Braves, while its losses to Cahokia and Mahomet were 20-7 and 44-14 margins.
A new wrinkle to this year’s Mt. Zion squad is its two-pronged quarterback situation. Connor Fox and Noah Schmahl have split snaps in every game, although Schmahl has accumulated 684 of the club’s 1070 passing yards to this point.
The Braves have attempted almost exactly as many rushing plays as passing plays and average more than four yards per run with Travon Street, Kellen Bollhorst and Fox all sitting between 150 and 240. The numbers aren’t eye-popping, but they’re solid and combined with a defense that has taken the ball away 13 times you come to the realization that for the umpteenth year in the row Mt. Zion is going to be a handful.
The Flaming Hearts are still clinging to postseason hopes in the new expanded IHSA postseason format. There is a lot of belief that as few as two victories – particularly with a schedule as merciless as Effingham’s – could still land a team in an opening-round game.
EHS already sits at 38 playoff points because FOUR of the opponents on its schedule remain undefeated as we move into the final third of the regular season. Breese Central, Mt. Carmel, Mahomet and Centralia are 6-0 and the only reason they can’t all go 9-0 is because Central and Centralia are now in the same league and play each other in Week Eight.
So despite the fact that up until this year a 1-5 record meant your playoff dreams had evaporated, this season’s team still has something more than pride left to play for as it approaches tough matchups against Mt. Zion and Centralia sandwiching a Week 8 home date with struggling Mattoon.
Elsewhere in the Apollo, Taylorville (4-2, 2-1) heads to Charleston (0-6, 0-3) while Mahomet (6-0, 3-0) hosts Mattoon (2-4, 1-2).
In the Lincoln Prairie Conference, Cumberland (3-3, 3-3 LPC) has pulled even after handling Arcola last week. Now the Pirates turn their attention to visiting Sangamon Valley (2-4, 2-4) in a bid to climb over .500 for the first time this year.
Speaking of Arcola, the Purple Riders announced this week they don’t have enough healthy players left to take on league frontrunner Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond.
ALAH, to its credit, didn’t simply accept the forfeit but went out and got itself a road game with Oakwood; Oakwood also had its Week 7 opponent bow out as Hoopeston/Armstrong-Potomac canceled the rest of its season in mid-September.
In the Little Illini Conference, Newton (3-3, 2-2 LIC) triumphed in a 35-29 barn burner against Paris last week and would love to climb out of the slog in the middle of the league standings with a win at Robinson (3-3, 2-2). Mt. Carmel puts its perfect record to the test at Casey-Westfield; the Warriors are yet another 3-3 team overall with a 2-2 league mark.