Valle's Nick Brown recovered one of St. Vincent's early fumbles to set up a touchdown. (Mike Boyd Jr./Ste. Genevieve Herald)

I watched Valle rip through St. Vincent on Friday night and saw Poplar Bluff come up short against Hannibal on Saturday in what was a rough weekend for the teams in the "Semoball.com coverage area."

In meetings where local teams played teams from outside the area, all nine local teams lost.

In addition to St. Vincent and Poplar Bluff, Chaffee lost at Crystal City, Malden lost to Thayer, Caruthersville lost to Piggott (Ark.), New Madrid County lost to Potosi, Cape Central lost to Blytheville (Ark.), Jackson lost at Gateway Tech, and Perryville lost to Ste. Genevieve.

For the year, Semoball teams in the SEMO Conference are 3-16 in nonconference games, including Caruthersville's lost to St. Vincent.

The only wins: Jackson's win at Parkway South, and Chaffee and East Prairie each beating the stuggling Grandview program.

(First-year SEMO North member Farmington is 2-1 with wins at North County and Belleville (Ill.) East and Saturday's loss at Jeff City Helias.)

The Semoball.com area teams, which include St. Vincent and Perryville, are 4-19 in games against teams not in the coverage area. Perryville beat Pacific to open the season.

That's not a very winning percentage for teams in this corner of the state.

So, what does that mean in the long run?

Three teams won playoff games last year: New Madrid in Class 3, Hayti in Class 1 and Jackson in Class 5. New Madrid's and Hayti's seasons ended with heartbreaking quarterfinal losses; Jackson fell to Waynesville, the eventual state champion, on the road.

More area teams will make the playoffs this year with the new playoff format sending in two teams from each district.

Judging from the early results, it may be hard for the locals to get far this time around.

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St. Vincent's early results -- a three-point win against Caruthersville, which lost by that same margin to unbeaten Class 3 team Kennett; and a one-point loss to Class 3 Park Hills Central, which pushed Class 4 Windsor on Friday night -- pointed to the possibility of the Indians hanging with Class 1 MAFC Blue Division rival Ste. Genevieve Valle.

The Indians had allowed only 20 points all season.

But a series of mistakes early in the contest opened the floodgates for Valle, which was coming off a Week 2 win in the city rivalry game against Class 3 state-ranked Ste. Genevieve.

With a fumbled kick return, a fumble on their first play from scrimmage and an unplanned onside kick by Valle, the Indians were in a 26-0 hole less than midway through the first quarter.

With that kind of a deficit facing St. Vincent -- and a penalty wiping out a touchdown pass on its second play from scrimmage -- the Indians never had a chance to get into an offensive rhythm or see if its defense would be able to slow Valle on a long field.

(The Warriors, after a 70-yard drive to open, had TD drives of 25, 30 and 39 yards for their next three scores. The first drive was 10 plays, the next three were eight plays.)

St. Vincent has another tough task Friday at Maplewood-Richmond Heights, the top-ranked team in Class 2. While the MAFC Blue Division is loaded up this year with Valle and Maplewood, St. Vincent probably still has a good chance of being a Class 1 playoff team in the new format -- and the Indians probably would get the pleasure of seeing Valle again, which may give them a chance to show if Friday was a fluke.

But from Friday night's showing by Valle, the young Warriors may be a team that goes far in the Class 1 playoffs. Junior quarterback Michael Greminger -- a strong-armed pitcher in the spring and summer -- was sharp in the spread offense, both running and passing. He had more than 100 yards of each. Sophomore running back Luke Uding, who left the previous week's game in an ambulance after colliding with Ste. Gen standout quarterback Kory Faulkner, rushed for 113 yards.

Junior receiver Jason Blum caught two TD passes and recovered a fumble (after having more than 100 yards receiving last week when senior receiver Cole Beiser suffered an injury that will have him out until the middle of the season).

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The Poplar Bluff-Hannibal matchup was interesting.

The Hannibal Pirates came in with heavy hearts, as team member Colin Krigbaum died earlier this month in a traffic accident.

The Pirates, like Poplar Bluff, have had several new players shuffle into the lineup due to injuries.

Bluff middle linebacker Aaron Ellis was among those not in the lineup Saturday afternoon.

Hannibal's option offense was a handful for the Mules, who also battled with turnovers, as the visitors stretched a 14-7 halftime lead into a 31-7 advantage by the midway point of the fourth period.

Poplar Bluff, which had a first-half touchdown on a long run by Zach Ferguson, had to go to the air in the fourth quarter for a pair of touchdown drives to close within 10 points.

The Mules were successful on one two-point conversion -- a swinging gate alignment in which Greg Coble ran in for the score -- but the two-point try after the last touchdown, with 3:41 to play, failed and left the Mules needing two scores.