In a high school football season with plenty of ups and downs, St. Louis Catholic simply wants to peak at the right time.

The Saints are hoping that time is now. St. Louis needs to win at Iowa Friday night to stay in contention for a first-round home game in next week’s Division II playoffs.

“Last year we peaked about Week 7 or 8 of the normal season,” St. Louis head coach Chad Lavergne said. “We are just trying to peak at the right time. Last week was a start. We have confidence.”

St. Louis ended a four-game losing streak last week. In each of the four loses, the Saints held the lead at some point, sometimes by two scores.

‘It is just a matter of finishing what we start,” Lavergne said. “All four games were different. We have had some special teams breakdowns, a bad turnover here and there and put the defense in a bad spot or we have trouble getting off the field on third down. It is just a matter of playing four complete quarters. We have played well enough at times. We just have to add consistency.”

It is the regular-season finale for the District 4-3A schools. Iowa (2-2, 1-1) held a 13-0 lead on No. 4 Lake Charles College Prep last week only to see the Trailblazers rally for a 40-27 victory.

“Hopefully we can play well and rebound from Prep last week,” said Iowa head coach Tommy Johns. “I thought we did some really good things against a good team.

“It was a tough loss, but we have had a great week so far. It is another tough opponent. Our district is so loaded.”

The Yellow Jackets’ defense, led by safety Cejae Ceasar and linebackers Ross Dennison and T.J. Cormier, will look to stop Saints running back Evan Joubert (737 yards, 13 TDs) and wide receiver Chase Wilson (537 yds., 6 TDs).

“It presents a problem,” Johns said. “(St. Louis does) a good job of getting the ball to both of those guys. You are going to have to take some chances to load up the box to stop (Joubert) while having sound coverage on Wilson. You have to be smart.”

Lavergne said the Yellow Jackets present a challenge on both sides of the ball as the Saints look to make up for Iowa’s size advantage.

“They have a lot of athletes,” Lavergne said. “They know what they want to do on offense and they do it well. You can’t focus on stopping one thing.

“They have some size on the defensive line, and their linebackers are physical. We are concerned on the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball because we do give up some size.”