Week #6 | H&R Sports Section C5 | Oct. 5, 2014

St. Teresa's Ryan Fyke releases a pass before being tackled by a Sullivan defender during the Bulldogs' win on Friday, which was a major step in the right direction toward winning the Central Illinois Conference title.

Second down: Conference leaders shuffled up

The conference races became much more interesting Saturday morning.

In a year where much of the conference makeup is different, there's been a close fight at the top of nearly every conference.

Nowhere is that more apparent than the Little Illini, where Robinson recovered to beat Lawrenceville and send the conference into a four-way tie at the top with Casey-Westfield and Marshall. After Lawrenceville beat the Warriors last week, it looked like this might be the year Casey would be dethroned. The Warriors have won eight of the last 10 conference titles.

Robinson's win put them back in the position to take the conference, and they have a great shot for at least a share of the title. The other three might beat on on each other as Marshall still has to play Lawrenceville and Casey.

St. Teresa's victory over Sullivan-Okaw Valley was the first big step to the first Central Illinois title, but they'll have to get through Tuscola and Shelbyville in consecutive weeks to lock that up.

Effingham put themselves in a great position for their first outright Apollo title since 2007 after beating Taylorville on Friday. The Hearts' last conference test will be Week 8 at home against Mount Zion.

Pass, pass, pass

As more and more teams have switched to the spread in recent years, the natural thought would be that the passing game would expand with it.

But in the last several years, the number of 1,000-yard passers has actually declined after it hit a peak of 13 quarterbacks in 2010 and '11, to just eight the past year.

That's back on the rise. Mount Zion's Payton Grinestaff, Monticello's Brandon Wildman, Shelbyville's Lucas Duckett and Mattoon's Braden Smith are hit that through five weeks. Tuscola's Nick Bates became the fifth area QB to hit that checkpoint after Friday's game, and five other QBs are within 170 yards with at least three games left to play.

Big-time runner

Warrensburg-Latham's Austin Tucker jumped back into the lead for the race for the rushing title. The Cardinal tailback ripped off another huge game -- 296 yards, the most for any back this season -- to edge ahead of Effingham's Zach Miller. For the season, Tucker has 1,103 yards and Miller has 1,086.

St. Teresa's Zach Jarrett is in third with 907 yards.

Nearly for the Broncos

Cerro Gordo-Bement's luck hasn't been the greatest this season.

Friday's one-point loss to ALAH was the latest in a season that hasn't gone the Broncos' way. It makes three losses by one or two points this year between the Week 1 overtime 21-20 loss to Tri-County and Week 2's 26-24 loss to Pawnee. Not only that, the Broncos have given up the final score each week.

Breakout year

Last year, Shelbyville's Devin Peterson finished with four catches for 70 yards.

He's already bettered that in four different games this season.

It's been quite the breakout season for the Rams senior wideout who turned in his fourth 100-plus yard performance on Friday. Peterson caught five passes for 122 yards against Meridian, and that's only his third-highest total this season behind the 207-yard day against Tuscola in Week 4. So it's no surprise Peterson leads the H&R area with 726 yards and 11 touchdowns this year.

History lesson

The short wait is over in Arcola.

The Purple Riders secured their sixth win on Friday, the only team in the H&R area to do so, with a 41-7 win against LSA.

That'll punch their ticket to the playoffs after a two-year layoff. It's the first year since 1999 where the Purple Riders started 6-0, and Sangamon Valley, Cerro Gordo-Bement and Tri-County now stand in the way of the first undefeated regular season since 1995. Arcola took second at state that year.

It also keeps them in the hunt for third place all-time for Illinois high school football teams for wins, which should change hands this year. The Purple Riders caught Wheaton Warrenville-South as both have 675 total wins. But Arcola is still a bit short of long-standing rival Tuscola, which is in third place with 677.