So much of the time, the emphasis for the sports world is on football…football and then, some more…football.
On Nov. 1st, our “RCN SportsTalk” takes a week off so that we may highlight some of the other hard working individuals in the Lehigh Valley region. I have the pleasure of announcing the District XI boys soccer championships for RCN-TV, and for that reason, I’d like to discuss some amazing facts and accomplishments among our local athletes in that sport that I’ve begun to uncover in preparing for our broadcasts. It should be noted that we did spend a good deal of time and attention on all of the sports on our show this fall season, and every team’s accomplishments deserves a solid round of applause (insert applause sound effects here).
Southern Lehigh has dominated the 2-A district playoffs, winning 14 of its 16 appearances in the championship. Salisbury is 2nd in that classification with 5 titles and, like the Spartans, have been playing at a high level again this fall. Northwestern and Moravian Academy have both won multiple championships in this sport, and the latter school was playing well when we stopped by their practice field with our camera a few weeks ago for “SportsTalk.”
The 3-A classification is always an interesting tournament, and while Emmaus has won the most titles (14), its Parkland that most people believe is the team to beat this year. Freedom and Liberty had to play each other in the opening round of the tourney, which was a tough match-up out of the game and it’s unfortunate one of those team would have to be eliminated in round one. In an autumn season in which very little positive sports publicity has fallen on ASD because of the struggles of the football team (although congrats to the Canaries for getting their first win over Lehighton), it’s refreshing to see the Allen soccer team in the mix and a chance for their students to cheer-on a playoff team.
One other sport I wanted to give special props to, as I did during our broadcast of the Emmaus/Whitehall football game, is a special “congrats” to the continuing dominance of the Green Hornets girls field hockey team. They captured their 9th straight league title last week (the only nine in the LVC’s history), and have won more state titles (5) than any other school in our coverage area. When Liberty defeated them this year, they celebrated like they just won the greatest game of their lives—as well they should have. There’s only a couple teams in the state that ever get an chance to do that each season, and it was years—literally—since a local team had defeated them in the regular season.
Who’s your favorite non-football local sports teams and which teams would you like to recognize? Post a comment here or email us at RCNSportsTalk@rcn.com and we’ll read and respond to it on our next live show, which will be November 8th!
