CHS ANSWERS OLD QUESTION

JACKSON -- Cape Girardeau Central Highs football Tigers had grown pretty tired of hearing the same old question from their classmates at school.

When are you going to finally beat Jackson.

The Tigers won't have to worry about hearing it any longer. Friday night, Central broke a four-year losing streak to their arch-rivals with a 22-6 victory -- on the Indians' home field no less."That was definitely the big topic around school," said a grinning Craig Knoth, Central's 6-foot-2, 275-pound senior two-way linemen. "Everybody was asking us when we were finally going to beat Jackson."This is a great feeling. This is my third year to play against them and we hadn't beaten them."Central senior tailback Emmanuel Harris led the Tigers in rushing with 91 yards on 19 carries and he also played a big role from his linebacker position. He, like Knoth, had grown weary of the big question."We were real tired of hearing it," he said with a laugh. "This is the third (Central-Jackson) game I've been in. We wanted this one bad."Another Central senior, defensive back Steven Criddle, also relished in the victory after intercepting two passes, including one in the end zone late in the game that snuffed out Jackson's last hopes of a comeback."People were asking us about Jackson all the time," he said. "We were tired of it and we came out and played a great game."The Tigers, now 4-5 overall and 2-0 in Class 5A, District 1 play, had played a brutal schedule to date. But they could have arguably had several more victories were it not for some crucial mistakes in several of the losses.

Friday night, however, the Tigers were virtually mistake-free with only one turnover, which did not hurt them. They took control in the first half, when all the game's points were scored, and never really let Jackson get back in the contest in the second half."I'd say this was our best game of the season," Harris said. "We had a lot of effort."Knoth agreed, saying, "It was our best game. We were aggressive and we took it to them."Even though Jackson's standout tailback, Todd Wessel, rushed for 107 yards before leaving with a knee injury late in the third quarter, the Tigers felt like they had done their job in not letting the explosive Wessel take over the game."Our game plan was to focus on Wessel," said Harris. "That was the key. We were really trying to stop him and for the most part I thought we did a pretty good job."Added Knoth, "Wessel was the key. He's most of their offense and he's a real good back. When he went out we weren't sad. We knew after that they'd have a hard time running the ball."