The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.
2020 has certainly been a bizarre year to say the least and that trend continued as we reached the end of the high school football regular season in the District XI region.
On the one hand, many people would have been thoroughly shocked back in August if we made it through Halloween without a rash of games being canceled in the Lehigh Valley this fall.
District Football Chair Jason Zimmerman was on SportsTalk last week to give his insights on all the things that went well for high school sports so far this fall. He made a point of saying that both he as well as most local administrators were thrilled with getting in as many games as they have and felt that we are overly fortunate just to be able to get to a football postseason.
(He also gave a preview of some of the changes that will be taking place for this fall’s postseason–including brand new information on spectator attendance policies! If you missed the program, RCN customers can watch it again for free through RCN on demand.)
However….
While we had only a handful of cancellations through September and most of October, we now enter the postseason with at least six local teams coming off a weekend in which their games were canceled because of Covid concerns.
Four of the 10 teams mentioned in this week’s polls did not play last weekend as they looked to embark on a postseason run but are coming off what ended up being a rare “bye week” to close out the regular season. Notre Dame, who had played well through September and October, will enter the Class 3A district playoffs as the top seed out of the Lehigh Valley, yet haven’t played a game in two weeks and are still facing speculation if they will be healthy enough to play this weekend.
Saucon Valley School District also reported at least two cases of the coronavirus on Friday, yet are scheduled to play Bethlehem Catholic this Saturday.
Interesting times, indeed.
That brings us to this week’s input from the RCN SportsTalk pollsters — a random collection of local coaches, athletic directors and media members. We never announce nor release the names of our non-media voters to get their honest opinions on the local football landscape while avoiding any thoughts of retribution or potential “bulletin board” material. Our “media voters” usually reveal themselves when we have the pleasure of having them on our weekly SportsTalk program, seen on Thursday nights on RCN TV and available through RCN on Demand.
This year, instead of having a big school and small school poll as in seasons past, we are going to break the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the RCN broadcast area. With the reduced schedules, this change for our poll will make things a bit more interesting since many of the top teams within the local conferences will not have the opportunity to actually face each other this fall.
Without the crowning of official Colonial League and EPC champions, our poll will be an intriguing barometer to who in fact is the best team in each conference (and, of course, bragging rights through the winter months).
So below we have high school polls for both leagues, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.
Feel free to email me at Chris.Michael@rcn.net for your thoughts on this week’s poll and we might read and respond to your emails on this week’s SportsTalk show.
EPC-LV TOP 5
1) Nazareth
2) Emmaus
3) Freedom
4) Parkland
Eligible Teams (in no particular order):
Allentown Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, Nazareth, and Northampton
COLONIAL TOP 5
2) Northwestern
3) Palisades
4) Southern Lehigh
5) Saucon Valley
Eligible Teams (in no particular order):
Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh, Southern Lehigh and Palisades
Be sure to bookmark our high school football broadcast schedule here on the website and check it frequently as, with several games already postponed or canceled so far this season, there could be changes from day to day.
