By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
So who’s looking forward to that 2-plus hour drive to Lincoln Friday night?
Probably not many.
With one notable exception.
The Effingham Hearts football team.
They have the opportunity to put their stamp on another successful season wearing the red and white uniforms. They can finish with a perfect 5-0 record and add an undefeated Apollo Conference championship plaque to the school trophy case.
Most will label the Hearts as overwhelming favorites. After all, the Railsplitters are winless on the season. And the closest anybody has been to Effingham this year is 13 points, and that came last week in the 34-21 win over Mt. Zion in what essentially was the “for all the marbles” game.
That same Braves team beat Lincoln 65-6.
Need another example? EHS beat Charleston 34-14. The Trojans beat the Railsplitters 54-0. By doing some quick comparison of scores, it’s easy to see why the Hearts will be favored Friday night.
But there’s an old adage in sports. Never take any opponent for granted. As history has proven, nothing is for certain.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
About five minutes following Friday night’s game, Effingham football coach Brett Hefner walked up to his team near the end zone.
It took just three words – “Apollo Conference Champions” – and the young men in red jerseys erupted into celebration.
It didn’t matter that it was mid-April rather than late fall. It didn’t matter they had to practice and play with masks. It didn’t matter they had to play a reduced schedule.
This group of Hearts were champions.
After a year that virtually everybody wants to forget, this team created a memory they will never forget.
And they did so by executing a ball-control game plan to near perfection.
The Hearts ran twice as many plays and had the ball 75 percent of the game.
And when the final horn sounded, the numbers on the scoreboard reflected the celebration on the field – Effingham 34; Mt. Zion 21.
“Mt. Zion is so dangerous, we knew we had to control the ball and control the clock,” Hefner explained. “But I didn’t think we’d control it that much. Those kids from Mt. Zion had to be exhausted. When you play like we did tonight, it takes its toll.”
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
In a year dominated by a pandemic, COVID has struck yet again.
Members of the Taylorville football program either tested positive for the virus or came into contact with others that have.
As a result, the Apollo Conference contest between Effingham and Taylorville, scheduled for Friday night at Jack Klosterman Field, has been cancelled.
The Tornadoes also cancelled their game with Mt. Zion last Saturday.
“We knew they had a COVID issue. We just didn’t know how bad,” EHS Coach Brett Hefner explained. “But we were told Monday that the game was cancelled.
“It’s really disappointing,” Hefner added. “You get this far into the season and you want to keep going. They still haven’t proven any transmission happens by playing, but that doesn’t seem to matter. They just shut you down for 14 days.
“I feel sorry for the kids. Now they have to lose a game because of it.”
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
It doesn’t matter whether it’s late October or mid-April.
Championship Week is Championship Week.
And that’s exactly what’s on the line Friday night at Jack Klosterman Field.
The undefeated Effingham Hearts will host the unbeaten Mt. Zion Braves. The winner will most likely be the Apollo Conference champion.
Both squads are 3-0 and both have missed one game due to COVID concerns in Taylorville. The Hearts and Tornadoes clash was cancelled last Friday and the Taylorville contest with Mt. Zion was cancelled on March 27.
Effingham will still have one league game remaining at Lincoln, but the Hearts will be the heavy favorites against the winless Railsplitters. The Braves blasted Lincoln 65-6 last week. Mt. Zion’s final game will be a non-conference contest.
“Winning the conference is always one of our goals,” EHS coach Brett Hefner said. “The kids are just happy they’ve got a meaningful game this week. It’s what they want. It’s what they’ve worked for.”
It’s going to be a big evening. If playing for the conference title wasn’t enough, it was also be Senior Night and it will be the final time this group of seniors plays at home.
By Steve Raymond
ET Sports Report
The offense normally gets the bulk of the headlines.
But most coaches will tell you that defense wins championships.
Prior to the start of the 2021 spring football season, Effingham Coach Brett Hefner believed his defense would be the strength of this year’s squad.
That defense was on full display Friday night in Mattoon.
The Hearts intercepted two passes, recovered a fumble, recorded three quarterback sacks and after making a couple early adjustments, virtually shut the Green Wave down.
And by the way, the Effingham offense wasn’t bad either, cracking the 300-yard plateau for the third time this season.
The combination of all that resulted in a 28-0 whitewashing of Mattoon that kept the Hearts undefeated and perched atop the Apollo Conference standings.
“We’ve definitely been pretty good on defense so far this year,” Hefner said of his unit that has allowed just 21 points in three games. “We have some key people back and these kids play very well together. I expected us to be strong on defense and they haven’t disappointed me.”
Early on, Mattoon was able to move the football, especially on the ground. Senior running back Jakai Johnson, who had rushed for a total of 200 yards in his first two contests, got off a good start. He gained 51 yards on 10 carries in the first quarter alone.
“They had a good game plan for us,” Hefner explained. “They threw an unbalanced line at us. We were out-numbered on one side and had some guys getting double-teamed that don’t normally face that. But we were able to make some adjustments that really helped.”
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