Benton played its first football game in 1915, and one of the teams on the Rangers’ schedule way back in that very first season was West Frankfort.
It’s 101 years later, and the teams are still playing.
With a rivalry with that kind of tradition, it’s no wonder Benton is fired up for Saturday afternoon’s visit from the Redbirds.
“Every year, everyone talks about it around town,” Benton senior offensive lineman and linebacker Bryden Picklesimer said. “Benton-West Frankfort. It’s the game of the year. It’s the big one. It definitely means a lot to us.”
For fellow Benton senior Oliver Davis, this is more than just a game. It’s personal. His family is from West Frankfort.
Lose this one and Davis said he’ll hear about it at every family gathering the rest of the year.
“I’ve grown up with them (the West Frankfort players),” said Davis, Benton’s kick returner, place-kicker and leading wide receiver. “I know them, it’s a lot of fun to play them. But only if you win.”
Benton has done that a lot. In coach Bob Pankey’s seven years on the Benton staff, the only loss came in 2014. That includes a 29-7 Rangers victory last year.
But this year the Redbirds are much improved, already 3-1 after going 0-9 last year. Benton is 2-2.
“They are a better West Frankfort team this year than they’ve been in a long time,” Pankey said.
“It’s huge. I don’t mean this disrespectfully at all, but they had so many years they weren’t very good, it was kind of a game on your schedule. The last few years it has been a much more competitive game. Our kids do get excited about it.”
Pankey knows as much about the history of Benton football as anyone, having researched it last year for a 100-year celebration. He said there’s several reasons this game became so important for both schools.
A big part of it is geography. The towns are just five miles apart.
Part of it is Franklin County bragging rights.
It’s also always a homecoming game for whoever hosts, the one game on the schedule moved to Saturday afternoon to give it more of a playoff feel.
Even if winning it might matter more than the playoffs.
“There’s a lot of things,” Pankey said. “There’s a lot of kids they know personally, and the communities are geographically are close together. There’s a lot of people that live in one place and work in the other. A lot of history.”
These towns so look forward to this matchup that up until 1983, they played this game every year on Thanksgiving.
It was called the Turkey Day game, and for years both schools decided not to play in the IHSA playoffs in order to continue the Thanksgiving tradition.
Finally administrators ended that Thanksgiving matchup, but locals still remember those games fondly.
“As the playoffs got to be more important, the playoffs had more focus, they reached the point they decided to do away with the Turkey Day game,” Pankey said. “A lot of people were upset about that because that was the tradition.”
More recently, a traveling trophy was created in 2007 for the schools to trade.
There’s several keys for Benton to keep the trophy in its possession.
Having allowed 104 points in 4 games, Benton would like to be better on defense.
The Rangers also are looking for a quicker start.
“We need to come out with more energy each game,” Picklesimer said. “We need to start the game better. We’ve had better success in the second half and we need to come out with the same energy in the first half as the second half. Start and finish.”
While the Rangers are coming off a 43-8 loss last week to Herrin, the game was much closer than the final score shows. Herrin only outgained Benton 344 yards to 322.
“We have to be able to finish drives, finish tackles, finish everything,” junior running back/linebacker Blane Pankey said. “If we play hard this is a beatable team.”
Benton is coming up to a key part in its schedule with games following against Harrisburg and Massac County, both 1-3.
A win Saturday would not only enable Benton to keep bragging rights, but possibly start a late-season playoff push.
“We’ve gotten off to an OK start,” Picklesimer said of the 2-2 record. “These next few games down the stretch are definitely very important. We definitely need to pull some out.”
“It just depends on how we play,” Davis said. “We try not to worry about how good or bad the other team is. We just come out and play our game and we can beat almost anybody.”
And there’s nobody they would rather beat than West Frankfort.
