SENECA, Mo — After claiming their third consecutive district title on Friday with a win over Mt. Vernon, the Seneca Indians are now into the quarterfinals of Class 3 where they’re no stranger to big playoff games.

This senior class for Seneca will be playing in their third state quarterfinal game this Friday night when they travel to face Ava (11-0).

Seneca defeated Liberty (Mountain View) in the Class 2 State Quarterfinals last season with most of that team returning for this year’s quarterfinal game.

Seneca has been averaging 49 points a game this season and have only allowed 10.5 points so far in the playoffs.

Seniors Gavyn Hoover and Jackson Marrs are part of that senior class and have been part of the program in their rise to success over the past three years.

Now heading into Friday’s matchup, Head Coach Cody Hilburn has a lot of guys this year on his squad who know the pressures of these state playoff games.

We caught up with the team about the advantages of having so many experienced guys this late in the season.

Senior Quarterback Gavyn Hoover said, “It’s really nice to have guys that are experienced in big games because you feel like you can count on everybody out there and, you know, nobody’s really worrying. Nobody’s too stressed out about the game and you can just go out and play football”.

Senior Running Back Jackson Marrs said, “Yeah, I think that’s a really good trait we have as a team is we’ve had a lot of guys playing really big time games and I think that takes a lot of stress off the players and the younger guys who aren’t experienced like that because we keep them calm and under control”.

Seneca Head Coach Cody Hilburn said, “Yeah, we have nine seniors that that have been part of this for the last three years and a lot of them were playing as sophomores. Even more were playing as juniors. So so they’ve been here before. They know how to prepare the correct way and hopefully that pays off on Friday night”.

Friday’s night game against Ava is set for a start time of 7:00 p.m.