A frustrating 48-3 showing last week against the Southern Boone Eagles likely solidified Versailles' season this year as a one-win team.
After winning its first game of the year, Versailles has lost seven straight, scoring only 48 points in that time. The Tigers play teams with great records (Hallsville, California, Osage) and teams with not so good records (Warsaw, Southern Boone, Eldon), and the result for Versailles has been the same no matter what.
Tonight, they'll play on the road against the 6-2 Blair Oaks Falcons to close out the regular season before going to California to play the undefeated Pintos in the first round of districts.
For all intents and purposes, Versailles will need their best performances if they want a chance at beating these top teams, but last year they proved it was possible, though definitely not probable.
In their first round of districts last year, they played the Eldon Mustangs who went in to the tournament as the No. 1 seed, and had a few more calls gone Versailles' way, it wasn't out of the question for them to sneak in a huge upset of the Mustangs, who still ended up winning 55-28.
Although Eldon sat a few injured players and didn't quite show Versailles offense their best defensive schemes, they still put up a ton of points on Versailles, and that's been something that Blair Oaks certainly hasn't struggled to do this year.
The Falcons average almost 34 points per game, and the only teams that showed any kind of resistance against their offense were California and Hallsville, the only two teams that beat them this year.
Versailles defense has also proven to be a group that still struggles with some of the fundamental aspects of the game, despite marked improvement over last year. They've been huge victims to the big play this year and allowing small mistakes to cumulate in a massive way for the opposing teams. Versailles lost to Warsaw because of two sweeps the Wildcats turned into touchdowns. Had they not given those up, they could have won that contest.
Against Southern Boone, the trouble came on the offensive side of the ball, particularly because of turnovers in the form of three interceptions and a fumble returned for a touchdown.
Perhaps the strongest piece of Versailles' offense this season is lineman Michael Allen, who has proven to be one of the Tigers' most consistent players each week.