DMV Update/HS Football Poll
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.
Before we take a look at the high school football landscape in Pennsylvania, a quick update on scholastic sports down in the DMV.
As we mentioned a few months ago, most high schools in this region postponed their fall sports until the spring season and their winter sports will be starting later than normal.
This doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been any significant news from a local sports perspective.
One of the biggest noteworthy additions came at Maryland’s National Christian Academy, where former collegiate coach Kenny Johnson was named the school’s athletic director and the boys basketball head coach.
Johnson not only brings a wealth of experience in coaching at the scholastic, collegiate and AAU levels but also has great insights on the recruiting process, preparing kids to play at the next level and many other aspects of basketball. He’s also coached players that are now playing in the NBA and shared some great stories about them with me recently.
Here is a clip of our interview with Coach Johnson–one of several winter sports interviews featuring teams from both Eastern Pennsylvania and the greater Washington, DC region that will be on upcoming editions of RCN SportsTalk.
Many schools in the DMV have not had any “official” practices. Others have had limited “skill sessions” on school grounds. However, early in the new year, expect the high school basketball action to heat up provided that the reported COVID-19 cases don’t increase too dramatically over the next month and a half.
That brings us to our second-to-last week for the 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) Freedom
3) Emmaus
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) Northern Lehigh
5) Southern Lehigh
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
