{"id":20240,"date":"2025-10-09T21:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T02:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/?p=20240"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:31:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T02:31:02","slug":"hearts-to-host-no-4-mt-zion-in-regular-season-home-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/sports\/football\/20240-hearts-to-host-no-4-mt-zion-in-regular-season-home-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearts to Host No. 4 Mt. Zion in Regular-Season Home Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pdfprnt-buttons pdfprnt-buttons-post pdfprnt-top-right\"><a href=\"javascript: window.print()\" class=\"pdfprnt-button pdfprnt-button-print\" target=\"_self\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thexradio.com\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/pdf-print\/images\/print.png\" alt=\"image_print\" title=\"Print Content\" \/><span class=\"pdfprnt-button-title pdfprnt-button-print-title\">Print<\/span><\/a><\/div><p>There&#8217;ll be no shortage of motivating factors for the Effingham High School football team Friday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Flaming Hearts are looking to avoid dipping below .500, snap a two-game losing streak, and face the need to win two of their final three games to get playoff eligible when Apollo Conference front-runner Mt. Zion invades Klosterman Field.<\/p>\n<p>All that is reason enough to be fired up for the final regular season home date of the year &#8230; and that&#8217;s before accounting for the innate competitive desire to show out against a highly regarded longtime conference rival currently sitting at No. 4 in the latest Associated Press Class 4A poll.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a lot of table setting, but this game comes down to a rather simple idea: The Braves are awfully good and the Hearts will need to be the best version of themselves this week if they want to get back in the win column.<\/p>\n<p>Mt. Zion (5-1, 3-0 Apollo) is coming off a 70-0 dismantling of Charleston, the third shutout the Braves have orchestrated en route to outscoring opponents 265-79 at the two-thirds point of the regular season schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Its one loss was Week 2 against Rochester in a tight 28-24 decision; the perennially strong Rockets are one spot ahead of Mt. Zion in that same Class 4A poll with only Lombard Montini and Morris ahead of them.<\/p>\n<p>The Braves are good in all phases, with senior receiver JC Anderson getting the lion&#8217;s share of outside attention due to his commitment to go play for Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss next year. Statistically, he&#8217;s actually the team&#8217;s second most prolific pass catcher by a significant margin as classmate Jacob Harvey has caught three more passes (33) for 324 more yards (684) and five more touchdowns (9).<\/p>\n<p>Another senior, Keller Stocks, will be the one throwing them the ball. He&#8217;s a second-year starter at quarterback and has tossed 19 TDs to just two interceptions while piling up nearly 1400 yards.<\/p>\n<p>As a team, the Braves also average 5.4 yards per rushing attempt; Stocks and junior Kellen Bollhorst share the team lead with 43 carries each.<\/p>\n<p>If that sounds like a lot to deal with, you&#8217;re not wrong. The good news is that hopefully the Hearts will be closer to full strength than a week ago at Mahomet.<\/p>\n<p>Effingham (3-3, 1-2) dropped a 49-7 game to the Bulldogs on the road last week but was within 14 as late as a couple minutes prior to the end of the third quarter before things went sideways.<\/p>\n<p>A number of regulars were limited or unavailable due to sickness and injury throughout the week, but the belief is most of the guys who couldn&#8217;t go will be able to contribute this time around.<\/p>\n<p>The Hearts ended up throwing the ball a season-high 42 times and had decent results (227 yards on 25 completions) but had easily their lowest output running the ball (-9 yards on 17 attempts) in a year that just hasn&#8217;t featured a lot of consistent success on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Junior wideout Chase Starkey caught six passes for 77 yards and a score while Maxx Kistler hauled in seven catches, doing their part to make up for the concussion-related absences of Jenner Pals and Carter Kalber. Kistler also snared his third interception of the season and the fourth of his varsity career.<\/p>\n<p>Having already entered the single-game EHS record book for completions and pass attempts, Jaxon Bridges (122-for-190) is on pace to overtake Nate Shackelford&#8217;s 2019 season records of 235 attempts and 158 completions. That same year, however, Shackelford accumulated a record 2,685 passing yards; that benchmark would take a bit more work to surpass as Bridges currently sits at 1,502.<\/p>\n<p>Maicol Sefton is also edging closer to Ben Cisna&#8217;s 2004-06 career record of 80 extra points; the senior kicker is just three shy.<\/p>\n<p>Game time, as always, is 7 p.m. Friday at Washington Savings Bank Stadium. You can tune in at 6:45 p.m. for pregame coverage on your Home for Hearts Football, 979 XFM.<\/p>\n<h3>APOLLO CONFERENCE \u2013 WEEK 7<\/h3>\n<p>Mt. Zion (5-1, 3-0) at Effingham (3-3, 1-2)<br \/>\nCharleston (1-5, 1-2) at Taylorville (3-3, 2-1)<br \/>\nMahomet-Seymour (3-3, 2-1) at Mattoon (1-5, 0-3)<\/p>\n<h3>LINCOLN PRAIRIE CONFERENCE \u2013 WEEK 7<\/h3>\n<p>Sullivan (5-1, 5-1) at Cumberland (5-1, 5-1)<br \/>\nTri-County (1-5, 1-5) at Argenta-Oreana (1-5, 1-4)<br \/>\nNokomis (5-1, 5-1) at Arthur-Lovington\/Atwood-Hammond (6-0, 6-0)<br \/>\nSangamon Valley (1-5, 1-4) at Villa Grove (4-2, 4-2)<br \/>\n<em>Arcola was scheduled to play Cerro Gordo-Bement this week prior to the Arcola\/CGB co-op agreement<!--; any school that does not or cannot fill the CGB hole in its schedule has the option to receive a victory by forfeit-->.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>LITTLE ILLINI CONFERENCE \u2013 WEEK 7<\/h3>\n<p>Robinson (3-3, 2-2) at Newton (1-5, 0-4)<br \/>\nCasey-Westfield (6-0, 4-0) at Mt. Carmel (3-3, 3-1)<br \/>\nLawrenceville (1-5, 0-4) at Marshall (3-3, 1-3)<br \/>\nParis (4-2, 2-2) at Olney (6-0, 4-0)<\/p>\n<h3>OTHER WEEK 7 GAMES OF NOTE<\/h3>\n<p>Breese Central (5-1, 3-0) at Roxana (4-2, 1-2)<br \/>\nBreese Mater Dei (2-4) at Belleville Althoff (3-3)<br \/>\nCentralia (5-1, 2-0) at Cahokia (5-1, 3-0)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;ll be no shortage of motivating factors for the Effingham High School football team Friday night. The Flaming Hearts are looking to avoid dipping below .500, snap a two-game losing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-20240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-sports-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hearts to Host No. 4 Mt. 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