The Mt. Zion Braves had a challenging schedule to finish out the second half of its 2021 varsity football season and won two of four games to finish 6-3 overall this season.

Coach Patrick Etherton calls his line the biggest he's had in his time at Mt. Zion and very talented skill position players this year. He also indicates they have a big senior class that has led them. 

According to Coach Etherton, he says the Apollo Conference allows them to schedule challenging out of conference opponents and they did just that this year, in addition to the Apollo conference being very good once again.

Coach Etherton says they had some big roles that would need to be filled in for coming into the season but he also felt he had a lot of good talent to fill in those spots. He is pleased with how the kids have responded to not just those new roles but filling in when they would have players go down to injury.

The Braves are the eighth seed in the south bracket of the 4A playoffs. They will host 6-3 Paris with the winner having a chance to take on either top-seeded Rochester or Cahokia.