EDITOR’S NOTE: While at St. Joseph last month for the volleyball state championships, I wondered if the muddy field at Benton High School was still there. It’s been turfed.

Football championships are now at St. Joseph


Bob Foos

Good luck to the Carthage Tigers as they prepare for the Class 5 MSHSAA state championship game Friday against the reigning champs, the Platte County Pirates. Not that we love Carthage, it’s just that the Tigers winning the championship would verify how tough our competition was this year among conference and district opponents.

The Central Ozark Conference will also be represented in the state championship round by the Nixa Eagles, as they face Lee’s Summit in Class 6 on Saturday.

The championships are at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph this year.

They will not be at St. Joe’s Benton High School, site of the infamous 1991 “Mud Bowl” semifinal, in which the Webb City Cardinals were robbed (14-0) of a third-straight state-championship appearance.

(We allege that Benton purposely drove lawn tractors over the field after a snow to make the field muddy and negate Webb City’s speed advantage. The Benton Cardinals lost the 1991 championship to Sumner 52-8.)

Webb City had a happier trip to St. Joseph in 1989 when the Cardinals achieved a 47-6 semifinal win over Lafayette. Of course, they went on to win Webb City’s first state championship, 16-0 over Sumner.

Webb City players during the 1991 mud bowl semifinal game at Benton.