For the last five years, the Marion County Eight-Man Championship Trophy has resided in Melcher-Dallas, more accurately, in Coach Pat Ferguson’s office. He wants to keep it right where it is and to do that his team will have to do something that no Melcher-Dallas or Twin Cedars team has ever done in the series that started in 1990, that is win six consecutive games in the series. The Saints have been close on three other occasions from 1991-1998, with a few breaks in the series added in, 2005-2009, and most recently 2017-through last season. Twin Cedars also ran five straight together from 2001-2004 with an extra game added in. All of that is not lost on Ferguson, who tells KNIA Sports his team will be ready to defend the trophy and keep it for a sixth straight year.

Ferguson: “Every pro football team, every college football team has one game circled as the game. I can’t remember who said it last night, they said that the trophy is staying in coach’s office, so we’ll be ready and I know Twin Cedars will be ready.”

The Saints are 1-3. Twin Cedars is looking to win the battle for the first time since 2016. Since then, Melcher-Dallas has won five straight games by an average score of 50-19. Sabers Coach Cam Parker is planning for the Saints to dig in the bag of tricks tonight and utilize their standout player Logan Godfrey.

Parker: “In the past games, they’ve burned us on trick plays like a halfback pass, and throwing it back to the quarterback. Godfrey has been in most of those, so we’ll have to key on him and stop him and if we do we should be successful.”

The Sabers are also looking for their first win of the season after starting off oh-and-five. Kick off from Melcher-Dallas is set for seven.