EDWARDSVILLE - The road to Illinois state championships in football begins on Center Grove Road in Edwardsville on Friday night, while the other local schools start their quests on Saturday.
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The Illinois High School Association released the dates and times for the first round of the 2019 playoffs on Monday afternoon, while in the Illinois Eight-Man Football Association, the governing body of eight-man in the state, also starts its playoffs on Friday night as well.
The two neighbors down the street from each other, Edwardsville High School and Metro-East Lutheran High School, start out on Friday at home. The Tigers, who finished the regular season 7-2 and seeded number 16 overall in Class 8A, opens up against number 17-seeded St. Charles East, also 7-2, at Tiger Stadium in a 6 p.m. kickoff, while the Knights, who clinched their first winning season since 2008 with a 50-12 win over Elgin Westminster Christian Saturday afternoon, gained the number eight seed overall in the I8FA playoffs, and hosts its first-ever postseason game against ninth-seeded Lowpoint-Washburn on Friday night in a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
The other eight-man school in the area, Bunker Hill, drew the number 14 seed and will play at number 13 Alden-Hebron this weekend, with the date and time to be announced. The top two seeds --- both number one Milford-Cissna Park and number two Polo --- received byes into the quarterfinals.
The other area schools will play on Saturday afternoon and evening. In Class 1A, White Hall North Greene, the 15th seed in the south half of the bracket, plays at number two Argenta-Oreana, with the kickoff coming at 1:30 p.m., while number seven Carrollton will host number 10 Arthur-Lovington-Atwood-Hammond in a 2 p.m. kickoff. Fifth-seeded Greenfield Northwestern will also host a first-round game, as the Tigers meet number 12 Mt. Sterling Brown County, starting at 1 p.m.
In Class 3A, 13th seeded Marquette Catholic will play at number four Fairfield in a 2 p.m. kickoff, while in Class 4A, number eight Civic Memorial hosts number nine Murphysboro at 4 p.m., and 15th seeded Roxana travels to number two Columbia, with the kickoff set for 2 p.m. And in Class 6A, top-seeded East St. Louis will host number 16 Chicago Morgan Park in a 2 p.m kickoff at Clyde C. Jordan Stadium.
All subsequent rounds, from the second round on to the semifinals, will have their dates, sites and kickoff times announced by the IHSA office each Monday, with the eight championship games set for Huskie Stadium at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb on Thanksgiving weekend, Nov. 29-30. The kickoff times for each day at at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m..
The I8FA tournament quarterfinals are set for the weekend of Nov. 8-9, with the semifinals on the weekend of Nov. 15-16. The final will be played at Monmouth College on Nov. 22, with the kickoff coming at 7 p.m.
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