Two ranked opponents face area teams

This Friday's slate of area football teams will see two play ranked opponents while WACO travels to HLV for a key district matchup and Sigourney-Keota hosts a Van Buren team that got its first win.

Highland must recover from its first loss with a road game against Class A District 6 opponent and sixth-ranked Pekin.

Columbus is looking for its first win, but fifth-ranked Class 1A District 5 and fifth-ranked Mediapolis comes to Columbus Junction.

WACO's Nik Coble is seventh in the state of 8-player quarterbacks with a rating at 111. Teammate Colton Horak is second in total yards combined of rushing and receiving with 1,059. He is fourth in scoring with 118 points from 10 rushing touchdowns, five receiving, three field goals, seven kicked point after touchdown conversions and three 2-point conversions. Chase Sternhagen of HLV is ninth in rushing yards with 714 on 95 carries.

Sigourney-Keota's JD Stout is fifth in Class 1A with 70 points scored, 66 from rushing TDs. Teammate Carson Crawford is 12th in rushing yards with 586 on 67 carries. Stout is 13th with 585 on 90 carries.

Columbus must find a way to stop Mepo's Zach Osborne, who is 14th with 572 yards on 71 totes.

The Wildcats' Chance Colby is 10th in 1A with 43.5 total tackles.

Highland will have its hands full with Dayne Eckley, who is second in Class A with 1,032 yards on 106 carries. The Huskies' Trey Lasek is 21st with 479 yards on 55 attempts. Lasek is 19th on combined rushing and passing yardage with another 353 yards passing on 21 completions.