Prairie Central’s opponent in round two of the IHSA football playoffs this Saturday is a big team. In fact, Roxana is probably one of the biggest defensive fronts the Hawks have seen this season.
Roxana also has speed – with some players comparable to PC, even though they are a young team.
“That can be dangerous when you get a young team that has some talent,” admits PC head coach Andrew Quain.
PC has a focused week of practice underway to prepare for Saturday’s road trip to Madison County, in the southwestern part of Illinois. This is a different week for the Hawks as they are playing a day later than normal, meaning they do have extra time to prepare for the opponent.
“We are actually going to take our extra day and head over to El Paso and practice on their turf field,” explained Quain.
Roxana has turf which plays a bit different than a grass field does.
“We definitely want to leave no stone unturned and make sure we are doing everything we can to be prepared.”
Quain considers last week’s first round home victory over Paxton-Buckley-Loda a “good team win” with offense, defense and special teams playing a solid game.
“As always, there are some things we can work on but I’m really happy with the kids’ effort,” notes Quain.
If you drive around the communities of the Prairie Central school district, you will see Hawk signs all over along with blue and white ribbons wrapped around trees in support of the Hawk playoff run. A paint the town event is planned for Fairbury and several businesses have reached out offering donations.
“You can feel the community behind us,” Quain concluded.
Once again, we will have live coverage (audio only) of Hawk playoff football this Saturday on the Fairbury News Facebook page with Jeff Curl and Mike Wolf calling the action at 2 p.m.
Local fans have planned a Hawk tailgate event prior to the game starting in the late morning hours.
