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For our smaller schools, it’s been an earlier than normal exit for most teams in our Lehigh Valley viewing area.
Only one local team qualified for the 3A playoffs this year (Notre Dame) and the Crusaders made a rare early exit (they did have injuries and ineligible player which hurt their chances).
In 4A, we are left with just one local team as Bethlehem Catholic and Wilson lost to Pottsville in consecutive weekends and left the Hawks’ rival, Central Catholic, as the lone Valley team in that classification–playing for a championship this weekend against the Crimson Tide.
So before we unveil our final “Small School Poll” of the 2019 campaign, here’s a look at how we saw things way back in early August–a few weeks before the season began.
“Small” Schools Poll–PRESEASON
2) Northwestern
4) Notre Dame
Other schools receiving votes: Saucon Valley
A reminder: “small schools” for our poll consist of schools from Bangor, Saucon Valley, Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern, Wilson, Palisades, Palmerton, Salisbury, Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Northern Lehigh and Catasauqua.
Now, here’s a look at how things shook-out here at the end of the season:
“Small” Schools Poll–FINAL
2) Northwestern
4) Notre Dame
Other schools receiving votes: Saucon Valley
WIth Central’s thrilling 17-point come-from-behind victory last Saturday over Northwestern, it gave the Vikings the top spot under first-year Head Coach Tim McGorry (you can hear our podcast with him and his coaches from before the season elsewhere here on this website).
Bethlehem Catholic faded during the season’s second half after being ranked in the top spot (both in our poll and according to the District XI “power point” system) throughout much of the season.
With all five teams getting votes at both the beginning and end of our poll, I have to congratulate our “pollsters” again this fall for doing a tremendous job with their pre-season predictions on who would be the top schools in 2019!
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Now, we still have a couple teams in the mix among our “big” schools…
“Big” Schools Poll
1) Nazareth
2) Parkland
3) Freedom
4) Easton
5) Northampton
For the largest school districts within the District XI/RCN-TV footprint, they qualify as the “big schools” in our pigskin poll. These schools consist of Parkland, Liberty, Allen, Easton, Emmaus, Liberty, Dieruff, Freedom, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Northampton, Nazareth, Whitehall, Southern Lehigh, East Stroudsburg-South, and Pocono Mountain East & West.
Next week, we’ll look at our FINAL poll for these schools and unveil how we did in predicting the top teams in this category as well!
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Now, here are our RCN football experts (along with myself) weighing in on four of the biggest high school games this weekend…
| The “PICK 4” | Parkland vs.Nazareth | Central Catholic vs.Pottsville | Solehi vs. Oil City | Colgate vs. Lafayette |
| Gary Laubach | Parkland | Pottsville | Solehi | Lafayette |
| Tony Cocca | Parkland | Pottsville | Solehi | Lafayette |
| Keith Groller | Parkland | Central Catholic | Solehi | Colgate |
| John Leone | Parkland | Pottsville | Solehi | Lafayette |
| Chris Michael | Parkland | Central Catholic | Solehi | Lafayette |
| The “PICK 4” | Parkland vs. Nazareth |
Central Cathoic vs. Pottsville |
Southern Lehigh vs. Oil City |
Lafayette vs. Colgate |
| Gary Laubach | Parkland | Pottsville | Southern Lehigh | Lafayette |
| Tony Cocca | Parkland | Pottsville | Southern Lehigh | Lafayette |
| Keith Groller | Parkland | Central Catholic | Southern Lehigh | Colgate |
| John Leone | Parkland | Pottsville | Southern Lehigh | Lafayette |
| Chris Michael | Parkland | Central Catholic | Southern Lehigh | Lafayette |
Keep following along each week here at “The Shop” for our predictions ahead of the weekend’s high school action and tune-in to our “RCN SportsTalk” television show for the latest “standings” to see which of our local football personalities are most correctly predicting the high school games this fall. Also, be sure to check out the “fan voting” section of RCN-TV’s games each week here on our website to let your opinions be known as well!
