The 'Road to the Ralph'

Hello to boys and girls from all over the world, and to all of you reading this blog, thank you for tuning.  In today's blog, we are going to continue to look at the Section VI High School Football Playoffs.  We will go over some of the great games of last weekend which includes the escape win over Starpoint, an amazing game between Lockport and Clarence, and also a couple close wins for Grand Island, and Springville.  I will also preview this week's semi-finals games as well as the huge game between Monsignor Martin foes Canisius and St. Joe's.  It is the week before the 'Ralph', or 'The Final Four' and the remaining teams must bring it to get the opportunity to play for their respective Class Championships.  First, I will release the Week 9 schedule for all you out there:  In Class AA, Frontier travels to Jamestown and Orchard Park travels to Lockport.  In Class A, Williamsville South will head over to West Seneca East, and Grand Island will head over to Sweet Home.  In Class B, Depew travels to Alden, and Springville travels to Cheektowaga.  In Class C, Fredonia travels to JFK, and Cleveland Hill travels to Wilson.  And in Class D, Portville travels to Maple Grove, and Silver Creek travels to Randolph.  Now a look back at last week, probably the best two games of the year happened in Week 8.  On Friday night, Starpoint went over to West Seneca East.  Now West Seneca East is arguable the best team in Class A and had a tremendous season.  Not to offend anyone from Starpoint and their season, but a lot of people were expecting the Spartans to just roll over for the Trojans of West Seneca East.  East is the #6 Large School team in the Buffalo News Poll and must have been looking ahead or something because this was a phenomenal football game.  It looked like the Bills and the Titans this past week, no defense.  Starpoint led basically the entire game, leading 28 to 14 heading into the 4th quarter, but East had the ball.  A quick touchdown, and it was a one score game, Starpoint scored again, but star quarterback Andy Smigera brought his team back twice to come within one point.  It was 35-34 Starpoint and the Coach from East was in the middle of making a tough decision.  Either to go for two and go for the win, or kick the point after attempt and take their chances in overtime.  And they chose to go for two, and they made the right decision.  Andy Smigera got the snap out of the shotgun, looked around for the pass, and saw an opening of field and took the ball in his own hands and ran it in to give the Trojans the wild victory.  West Seneca East now has to move on to play the Williamsville South Billies, a tough matchup and an intriguing game at that.  Lockport and Clarence was another unbelievable game this past weekend.  Clarence opened up dominating on a rainy and muddy Saturday, scoring 27 unanswered points early.  And somehow someway, Lockport came together, and was able to get back into the game.  James Chambers, the star running back for the team, put the team on his back and almost single-handedly got the win for the Lions.  He had 4 touchdowns, including a 90 yard punt return the sparked their 21-point 4th quarter and got the game into overtime.  A 35-35 score heading into the extra time, who else but James Chambers to cap off the historical comeback off a one yard run to give Lockport the 42 to 35 win in a crazy ending.  Now they will have a rematch with Week One opponent Orchard Park.  The Quakers won a 42 to 21 win, even though the score isn't as close as it seems, Lockport held the score close early, and you never know when you have to go against James Chambers what could happen.  Grand Island pulled away late in a 27 to 20 win over Iroqious, and they will now have the tough task of taking on undefeated and always good Sweet Home Panthers.  I had the opportunity to check out Sweet Home in their first round match up against WIlliamsville East, and they dominated the entire game.  A 46 to 6 trouncing of the Flames.  Grand Island has to stop the high powered offense and of course the entire team speed, should be a tough challenge for the Vikings but hey, who knows what'll happen.  Springville got out of a tight battle against Eden, and is the lone cinderella story left in the bracket.  They have to go to #2 seed and starless Cheektowaga, and many people are favoring them to go to the 'Ralph'.  It should be interesting to see what happens.  Now they big game this weekend comes out of Section VI, and not a playoff game.  The final regular season game in the Monsignor Martin League between Canisius and St. Joe's, a storied rivalry that has a lot of history.  Last year, St. Joe's grinded out a tough one point victory over the Crusaders, but this year Canisius is the team that's undefeated, and they're the team with all the expectations.  They are the #1 Large School in the Buffalo News Poll, and have a lot going for them, especially on the back of their star Qadree Ollison.  This should be a phenomenal Saturday afternoon game and I may try and get out there for that one if I were you.  So that's all I have for you today, 'till next time, good luck and get it done. 

Visit of a Lifetime, and Playoff Predictions

Hello to boys and girls from all over the world reading my latest blog, and hopefully adhearing to the tips and information I will be giving out once again in the latest blog of, "Life of a Student Athlete."  So in today's edition your are going to be able to live the awesome experience I encountered a couple weeks ago.  We are also going to put in a preview or fill out some "brackets" if you will in every class of the Section VI Football playoffs.  So as most of you know, I am a baseball player, and I'd love to play in college.  Anyways I'm a pitcher and over the summer I travel all over for baseball tournaments with my summer team.  And one time this past summer we were in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I got my chance to come into the game near the end right before a storm was about to blow over us.  I threw maybe 10 pitches and in those ten pitches, I got hit with a come backer, and made a throwing error to first base.  I got right back up and toughed it out and that's the reason I'm telling you this story.  Because at that game, was a scout from Michigan State.  Yes, the Michigan State, from the Big Ten, a storied program.  Well a couple weeks later I received an email to go to their camp, not really a big deal it's only a camp.  But then, another week or two after that, the coolest thing ever happened.  I got another email  from Michigan State again, which was very strange.  In it said that they were interested in me and they wanted a copy of my transcript, my school baseball schedule, and my summer baseball schedule.  But it didn't stop there.  They then told me that they would like to invite me down for an unofficial visit and take me to a football game of my choice for who they were going to be playing against.  And that's what was really amazing.  So two weekends ago, our homecoming, I went down at 6 in the morning on Saturday to take a 5 hour road trip to East Lansing.  We arrived and I can't put into words what it's like there.  The campus, the people, the history, it was surreal.  The campus was beautiful and it was awesome to be in a college atmosphere on game day.  So many people tailgating and so many events going on.  As well as College Gameday, from ESPN was there.  Once we got there we went to check out the baseball stadium and meet all the coaches and have some food before the game and then they sat us down and some different people came in to speak to us.  The first was a Michigan State alum, and played on the baseball team, he was in charge of the office of admissions or something and he was a really good speaker and he provided a ton of information and that was neat, and then the team tutor or head tutor for all athletics.  After they were all done talking we traveled over to the football stadium, and I, along with all the other recruits there, got field passes and we were able to go on the field for the majority of pregame.  And we were right up close too, literally 3 feet from the players.  And the beginning of the wall for the seats is like 5 yards from the benches.  Our seats were also right next to the student section.  It's just an unbelievable atmosphere and I had an amazing time.  We got to go to their game against Ohio State, and unfortunately they lost.  The camp was the next day and I didn't do bad I must say.  Overall I was pretty happy.  And even more excited with the entire weekend.  Thank you to everyone that made it happen.  So Week 7 of High School Football has ended you know what that means, playoffs are here for Section VI Football.  In Class AA the match ups look like this: Hutch-Tech will travel to Jamestown, Frontier will travel to Niagara Falls, Kenmore West will travel to Orchard Park, and Clarence will travel to Lockport.  My predictions for who will square off at the Ralph is a rematch of the Week 6 phenomenon, Orchard Park versus Jamestown.  Jamestown won the first battle in a 35-28 thriller, but in this game I think OP will dethrone the #1 seed in the South.  In Class A Starpoint takes on West Seneca East, Williamsville South takes on McKinley, Grand Island takes on Iroquois, and Williamsville East takes on Sweet Home.  And at the Ralph the game everyone wants to see, including me, is going to be the battle of the undefeateds, West Seneca East and Sweet Home.  I think that West Seneca East is going to pull off the upset and I cannot wait for this exciting match up.  In Class B, Pioneer will travel here to Alden, Depew will travel to Burgard, Springville will travel to Eden, Lew-Port will travel to Cheektowaga.  I think it will be Alden against Cheektowaga at the Ralph, a rematch of the game 3 years ago where Cheektowaga won, this time I think it'll be different.  In Class C, Cassadaga Valley goes to JFK, Fredonia goes to Allegheny-Limestone, Westfield goes to Wilson, and Cleveland Hill goes to Salamanca.  I think Allegheny-Limestone will beat JFK and go to the Ralph and they will take on Salamanca.