Rachel Crader is the editor of semoball.com. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in May of 2009 before spending the summer covering the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Highlights from Rachel's days in college include having a class down the hall from Chase Daniel and having NCAA wrestling champion Ben Askren hold the door open for her at Brady Commons, Mizzou's student center. She spent time covering Mizzou basketball, softball and baseball while working for the Columbia Missourian and is excited to return home to Southeast Missouri to cover local sports for semoball.com.

Rachel has covered three Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournaments for the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com, and she'll see you courtside again this year.

Semoball Football Poll: Week Two

Posted Wednesday, September 7, 2011, at 3:46 AM

Sorry we got a little off schedule this week, but here is the new semoball football rankings.

Team Record Points Last Week's Ranking

Cape Central (3) 2-0 23 1

Sikeston (2) 1-1 22 2

Dexter 2-0 13 3

Caruthersville 2-0 12 4

Hayti 2-0 4 NR

Others receiving votes: Poplar Bluff 1.

The top four remained the same, though Sikeston picked up an extra first-place vote this week. Last week Dexter, the team Sikeston will face Friday, got one first-place vote. Poplar Bluff dropped out of the rankings and was replaced by Hayti at No. 5.

How the rankings are determined:

The sports staff at each of the newspapers that contribute to semoball are given a vote -- that includes the Daily American Republic (Poplar Bluff), Daily Dunklin Democrat (Kennett), Dexter Daily Statesman, Sikeston Standard Democrat and Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau). Each staff is free to determine how they want to complete its ballot, but there are 12 total people that cover sports for those papers all across the semoball coverage area.

Brian Rosener of the Daily American Republic tallies to the votes. A first-place vote is worth five points, a second-place vote is worth four points and so on.

Comments

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It looks like a lot will be decided by Friday's game between Sikeston and Dexter. Cape was not the most impressive in their win against Festus. If Sikeston can get a convincing win against Dexter, it may sway the votes just enough that they can overtake the #1 spot (All they would have to do is get one voter to change positions). Meanwhile, if Dexter wins, that will put them solidly into the #2 slot and may drop Sikeston down to #4. Personally, I still think this poll is overrating what Cape is doing against weak opposition. Would have been nice for them to play against Memphis CBC this week. Too bad. My top five remains the same with Sikeston, Dexter, Caruthersville, Cape, and Hayti in that order.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 12:00 PM
Cape Central was supposed to play the Christian Brothers Cadets from St. Louis, not the Christian Brothers High School Purple Wave from Memphis.

-- Posted by gianthook on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 2:01 PM
Here is my upset prediction for this season~! Jackson is going to beat Cape Central and beat them good next week!

-- Posted by Jax12 on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 2:15 PM
Bold, jaxindians. Very bold.

-- Posted by Rachel Crader on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 2:31 PM
Is heard both gianthook. Thanks for clarification. Either way, Cape needs to try to work in at least one strong team on their non-conference schedule. I think it'll hurt them come districts.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 2:55 PM
i think sikeston is #1 until a semo team knocks them off. c'ville is too low. i'd put them at #2. is farmington eligible for the poll? they are a semo conf team.

-- Posted by myershallred on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 8:27 PM
It isn't SEMO conference teams but teams covered within the Semoball area. Thus, Farmington is ineligible.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 8:29 PM
cape central was to play cbhs memphis purple wave. either way it would have been a good experience playing a team like that. even though im pretty positive the outcome would have been pretty ugly (in favor of the purple wave)

-- Posted by uptobat on Wed, Sep 7, 2011, at 9:11 PM
I think central dodged a purple bullet. Christian Brothers high school is ranked 2nd in the commercial appeals dandy dozen and all the schools on the rankings have several players that will go on to play d1 somewhere so to earn that honor amongst teams THAT CAN ALL PLAY just let's me know it would be a slaughter had the game happened. On another note Christian Brothers high school is a private all-boys school and they have an awesome baseball field that would make Notre Dame jealous. If you ever get to Memphis you should check it out. The school is located right off Walnut Grove rd.

-- Posted by sbulldog4life on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 6:28 AM
I wouldn't say it makes ND jealous. It's a great sports complex overall but the fields aren't amazing. If the dugouts were in ground I might side with you a little more.

You guys say sikeston should be first until somebody beats them but it's a completely different team then last year, this group of kids hasn't accomplished anything yet. If they had returned half the starters from last year then yes they should be first but they have all new faces and are 1-1.

-- Posted by BB-BORE on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 6:52 AM
And what has cape proved?

-- Posted by Dustin Ruby on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 7:11 AM
I totally agree, if any team has a good rushing attack they'll put up numbers against cape, that 3 fronts not going to cut it.. IMO

-- Posted by Dustin Ruby on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 9:06 AM
Cape is 2-0 with a new team and sikeston is 1-1 with a new team. I know all about sikeston played a tough week 1 but in this poll the voters obviously don't care.

Jax, we would be 1-1 if we played Jacksons schedule. Im not even going to look towards districts because there is a lot of time until then and a lot can happen. Last year it was said that it would be Farmington and sikeston also and then we beat Farmington. Players can get injured or improve drastically in 6 games, especially with a young team.

-- Posted by BB-BORE on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 8:28 PM
SemoSports, I don't think you understand how good the QB for Farmington is. Plus, Sikeston actually played a tough team to open the season. Cape would be 2-1 after this week if they had kept CBC on the schedule. However, if you want to keep touting the record against a bunch of weak teams even by SEMO standards, then go ahead.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Thu, Sep 8, 2011, at 8:34 PM
We have already played Farmington in the jamboree, yes he is very good but doesn't have the arm strength or speed on his feet like hibbetts. He is just like a slower version of festus' qb.

-- Posted by BB-BORE on Fri, Sep 9, 2011, at 6:51 AM
Also, I stated that sikeston played a tough opener and wench on to say that the voters obviously are going off of records and not who people play. Festus is not nearly as bad as people think, I think you will see that as the season goes on.

-- Posted by BB-BORE on Fri, Sep 9, 2011, at 6:55 AM
Or capes not nearly as good as your saying

-- Posted by Dustin Ruby on Fri, Sep 9, 2011, at 7:09 AM
Caruthersville should be ranked higher.

-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Sun, Sep 11, 2011, at 11:09 PM
bb-bore is right. festus is not nearly as bad as people are saying. cape is def. not as good as last year but are very good again and they will show you just that

-- Posted by uptobat on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 12:08 AM
bb-bore is right. festus is not nearly as bad as people are saying. cape is def. not as good as last year but are very good again and they will show you just that

-- Posted by uptobat on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 12:08 AM
I'd love to see Caruthersville drop one of its teams and play Cape Central. Just like a Scott County Central-Sikeston basketball game. Granted it will never happen. It would be almost impossible to find a team willing to give up its contest against Caruthersville and play 9 regular-season games. It is also unlikely Cape Central would want to play three games in two weeks.

-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 12:18 AM
I'd also love see Hayti play Poplar Bluff. I'm willing to wager Poplar Bluff would win 80 percent of the time.

-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 12:20 AM
We had a bye week this past week.

-- Posted by BB-BORE on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 6:50 AM
The only team left on the schedule that Cville would be able to drop would be Hercky. The rest of the teams Cville has to play because of Conference and Districts. I'd like to see Cville drop Portageville and Crystal City and play other tougher teams though. It's hard to do though because the bigger schools would be in a lose/lose situation. If they beat a smaller school it's because they were suppose to, but if they lose then that looks really bad on them. Most bigger schools don't want to take that chance which is why Cville pretty much has to play the schedule they have every year. Your right, most years Poplar Bluff would destroy Hayti, not sure about this year though.

-- Posted by Cheesehead. on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 7:47 AM
This isn't like basketball where teams will occasionally be ok with dropping a game late in the year. Would I rather see Sikeston play Carutherville instead of Kennett? Sure. But football is rooted in contracts and playing a lot of the same teams year after year. A lot of teams play the same opponents the same week every year. A team like Sikeston usually has flexibility with the first game. A team like Cape usually has it their third game. And so on. So basically teams would have to re-work their whole schedules to get some games together. I don't know why you would even bring up dropping games at all Dustin. Kinda silly.

Cheesehead, in terms of your point about Caruthersville being in a lose-lose against bigger schools, it is about to get a lot worse for a strong smaller teams like the Tigers with the new playoff system. The bigger schools in the area (SEMO Conference North members) are going to be sacrificing points every time they play a Dexter or Kennett etc. already. They are not going to want to risk the extra points lost from not only playing but potentially losing to a school in a smaller class. It wouldn't be that they are scared to play them per se but that there is not enough reward to warrant the risk. Teams like Caruthersville will be getting the shaft in matchups because other strong teams won't want to play them. It is sad but that is what is going to happen.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 11:13 AM
sideline starter

As I stated above it will never happen. But I wonder who would win a Caruthersville-Cape Central game? I guess we will never know.

-- Posted by Dustin Ward on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 1:03 PM
The Tigers would of course.

-- Posted by sideline starter on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 1:49 PM
I might still work out okay for Cville because all the teams in the 8 man district will not have any tougher schedule than the Tigers so I'm sure it will come down to wins/losses and margin of victory. Hopefully everything will work out okay. I still would like to see my tigers schedule a couple tougher teams though

-- Posted by Cheesehead. on Mon, Sep 12, 2011, at 2:43 PM

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