CHESTER — In Week 2 of the high school football season, Chester-Joplin-Inverness hosted Denton-Geyser-Stanford-Geraldine in what was expected to be a heavyweight early season 6-Man clash.
But D-G-S-G ended up winning 86-36.
Fast forward to Nov. 8 and the two met again in Chester, but this game was exponentially different as the Hawks defeated the Bearcats 48-22.
"We just remembered that loss and it fueled us to beat them the way that they beat us Week 2," senior Ryland St. John said following Saturday's quarterfinal win.
"Not many times do you get a chance to beat the people that (beat you) by 50, and we embraced it," senior Cooper Streit said. "We knew that they'd come to bring it, but we knew we wanted it more."
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After trailing 14-6 at halftime, C-J-I outscored D-G-S-G 42-6 in the final two quarters to advance on to the semifinals.
St. John and Streit said that the Week 2 loss helped their team out in a sense.
"It fueled us for the rest of the season to keep pushing, and we knew we were going to play them again at some point," St. John said.
"Taught us that we're beatable and it's not going to come to us, we have to go take it," Streit said. "That was a hard lesson, but a good lesson, and we're ready to go now."
C-J-I coach Jim Vinson also said that the early season loss was a big learning experience.
"We knew from the beginning that eventually this game was going to happen again," Vinson said. "We prepare for every team that we play every Monday. We start out the same and prepare the same. But there is a little more anxiety and little excitement knowing who we had this week."
C-J-I had been upended in the quarterfinals in each of the past three postseasons, meaning this is the first time that St. John and Streit have made it to the 6-Man semifinals.
"Feels great. We came up short the last two years, and got to finish this job for my senior year," St. John said. "Just keep rolling."
"Knowing that Monday is not guaranteed, that pushes me an extra bit," Streit said. "Playing with this team, this will be the last time. So I want to make it to the end."
Up next for the 6-Man North division winners is a semifinal road game at Northwest division champion Lincoln.
"They're kind of an amazing story with nine kids on the team and staying healthy and continuing to play and continuing to win," Vinson said. "We're just excited to get the opportunity to go to Lincoln and play."
The Hawks face the Lynx at 1 p.m. Saturday with a berth in the 6-Man state championship game on the line.
