This is our annual “parade” week here at the Astound TV Network. Our crew members are busy providing coverage of local Halloween activities and community events to our viewers. This is also the week where our SportsTalk show, and our weekly high school football polls, take a week off.

However, this is a special week as we would like to introduce the newest member of the ATVN Sports staff. Amirah Moody is a former high school standout now in college and will be starting to take on several different roles within our broadcasting family.

  Today, she takes over the keyboard here at “The Shop” and shares a bit of information about herself and her views on how participating in sports has played a role in her life.

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Ten years ago, I played volleyball for the first time, not knowing this would be the sport that would help shape me into the person I am today. My mom was my coach and she taught me the basics of volleyball: how to pass, set, underhand serve, not to fear the ball, and to have fun. She introduced me to the sport I love to play and that has become so integrated into my life. I played soccer and basketball for a few years, tried out dance and gymnastics, but nothing stuck or felt right like when I was playing volleyball.

During high school I realized that volleyball is not about how strong or how fast you are, it’s about your mindset and you must have a strong mentality when playing the game. I graduated from Bethlehem Catholic and played for them all four years. I was nervous trying out for the high school team, so nervous and scared I would make a mistake. This caused me to make millions of mistakes and all I could think about were the mistakes I was making. My high school coach told us to shake off our mistakes and I started to learn how to have a “next ball mentality”.

My attitude shifted from self-deprecation to self-actualization, and I try to always remember that volleyball is a game of mistakes, but it is all about what you do with that mistake. Do you stress about that one mistake and become fearful of making another one, or do you think about how you can do better for the next ball? By understanding this, it not only helped me as an individual player and the teams I was a part of but this “next ball mentality” also helps me in school and everyday life.

Everyone makes mistakes; being able to learn from them and move forward is the best way to handle them.

Being a student athlete in the Lehigh Valley gives you a lot of connections to coaches, both high school and college; trainers; and players from other schools; which broadens the opportunities and experiences you could have in the future. I have had opportunities to help coach at local summer camps, guest play for local travel teams, had babysitting jobs for local coaches, provided individual training to young up-and- coming volleyball players; the list goes on and on.

Now I am a senior at Muhlenberg College, and my current head coach is the same coach I had when I was 14 years old playing travel club volleyball for CrossCourt Volleyball Club. I feel privileged to have had Coach Rob as a coach at the beginning of my competitive volleyball career and now also during my last competitive year playing my senior year in college. While attending and playing at college, I have been offered so many opportunities and endured many experiences that helped shape the person I am today.

Throughout my ten years of playing volleyball, I had many coaches, all with different coaching styles and personalities. These differences helped me, as my coaches have all been people I look up to and who have helped me learn how to work with different types of people. I had the opportunity to coach volleyball for CrossCourt Volleyball Club the past three years and it was an amazing experience. I knew who I wanted to be as a coach because of the coaches I had throughout my career. I learned a lot as a coach the last three years and my love for volleyball grew even more. Looking into the future, I will continue to coach and help young volleyball players learn the life lessons I have learned over the years while also playing the game they love!

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Please join us in welcoming Amirah to our communications family!

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Before we take a look at our high school football poll this week, we’d like to spotlight one of the sports that doesn’t get nearly as much attention.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference recently conducted its fall championship tournament (hats off to Allen High School Athletic Director Randy Atiyeh for taking over the chair of this position and running a smooth tournament!).

The first round of the district was also held this past week (chaired by Catasauqua’s Tom Moll).

Here are the final brackets of all the champions in the different categories of this fall’s events…

• 2022-23 District XI Girls Tennis- 2A Singles
• 2022-23 District XI Girls Tennis- 3A Singles

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It certainly was an interesting weekend of HS football on ATVN last weekend.  This weekend should be another good pairing as we have a battle of the #1 and #3 teams in our poll facing off against each other on Friday night.  We also have a suddenly streaking Parkland team playing a Bethlehem Catholic squad that, when on their game, have played very well this year.

Before we look at this week’s high school football polls….. first, here are the details on our polls if you are new to our blog.

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 the Astound TV Network and available to watch at any time for free through ATVN on Demand.

This year, we are breaking the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the Astound broadcast area.  With the Colonial teams cross-scheduling and playing teams from the Schuylkill League and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playing different “crossover” teams, our poll will be an interesting barometer for teams in the Lehigh Valley since many local teams will not have the same opponents on their schedule.

Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Emmaus
2. Freedom
3. Nazareth
4. Northampton
5. Parkland

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northwestern
2. Northern Lehigh
3. Southern Lehigh
4. Notre Dame-GP

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

Be sure to check back to our website for our weekly polls and check our upcoming broadcast information frequently for any changes for our ongoing sports schedule throughout the fall season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

First of all, my thanks to the people who approached me this past week thanking us at ATVN for featuring the Colonial League last week on our broadcasts.

I’ve heard workers with vast experience in customer relations say that people will not hesitate to approach you with concerns or issues they are having, but it takes a lot to get people to take the time to give praise when you do something they like.

If that theory is true, we must have made a lot of people happy last week!

The Astound TV Network featured a pair of Colonial League teams–Northwestern and Saucon Valley–as our featured Friday night live game.  We also devoted most of last week’s SportsTalk show to discussing issues in the Colonial-Schuylkill “co-op.”

It was our pleasure to feature those teams and talk about the outstanding players in that league (as well as talk about a very competitive league playoff race shaping up).  It is our hope to focus on those teams even more going forward and we hope to see some of these teams go far in the state playoffs!

Sadly, we also had to send some time on last week’s program talking about more tragedies in high school sports–and in our viewing area in particular.

So far already this school year, we have lost two scholastic athletes who died because of senseless crimes committed (at Whitehall and Allen high schools) and a teacher’s aide (at Dieruff High School) killed because of reckless driving.

There have been several football programs in Pennsylvania that have canceled their seasons due to  “undisclosed reasons,” which unfortunately usually occurs when kids (allegedly) commit acts so over-the-line that the school must take quick action as punishment and perform lengthy investigations.

Other schools are canceling sports programs due to lack of interest and not being able to field enough students to participate.  Also, we’ve had a couple reports of students (who happen to be on sports teams) bringing guns to school.

Meanwhile, many games are getting scrapped or rescheduled due to a desperate lack of officials.  At last week’s District XI press conference, instead of leading off with information on the new playoff formats or some of the other positive things going on in high school sports, a good amount of time was spent by local administrators begging for more people to get involved in local sports to referee or umpire games.

We are going to start seeing some rather drastic changes to scheduling local sports playoff games soon–due mostly because there simply aren’t enough officials to have games being played at their “normal” times.

I myself have had several opportunities a number of years ago to decide on whether I wanted to work in the sports or news areas of communications–and I picked the former because I really didn’t want to deal with all the negativity that comes with the latter.

Unfortunately, sports on many levels is dealing more with “news-related” types of stories right now, and it has certainly darkened what once was a very promising local sports season.

Hopefully things change around very soon.  I would love to spend more time on the positive things going on in our viewing area and deeply hope we don’t have any more tragic events affecting our sports communities for a long time to come!

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Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Emmaus
2. Freedom
3. Nazareth
4. Central Catholic
5. Northampton

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Notre Dame-GP
2. Northwestern
3. Northern Lehigh
4. Southern Lehigh

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

Be sure to check back to our website for our weekly polls and check our upcoming broadcast information frequently for any changes for our ongoing sports schedule throughout the fall season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

If you are a sports fan, you probably have heard the name Mimi Griffin before.

If you haven’t, here are just some of her accomplishments as listed on the “bio page” of inductees on the National Collegiate Athletic Associations’ Hall of Fame website:

• Griffin is considered to be the first broadcast expert for women’s basketball
• She served as the “face” for women’s basketball in its early television exposure and laid the foundation and groundwork for women’s basketball on television
• She was the National Director of Promotion for Women’s Athletics for Converse from 1983-85
• Griffin was the ESPN primary women’s basketball analyst from 1983-1999 and was the color analyst for the NCAA Women’s Final Four from 1985-1991
• In 1990, she was the first woman color analyst for a NCAA men’s tournament game on ESPN.
• In 1991, she became the first woman to broadcast the first two rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on CBS Sports
• Griffin was the Championship Director of the US Senior Open in 1992, 2000, and 2022 and was the Championship Director of the US Women’s Open in 1995 and 2009
• She was the Director of Marketing and Championship Administration for the US Open in 1995 and 1998
• She was the 1994 WBCA Mel Greenberg Media Award winner
• In 2009, Griffin was named one of the “Best 50 Women in Business” by Pennsylvania Governor and the Department of Community and Economic Development

And now, she is joining ATVN!

Enshrined in the NCAA’s Hall of Fame in 2014, Mimi is joining our sports family as an announcer and will be giving her valuable expertise and vast basketball insights on our winter sports broadcasts.

I have had the pleasure of working with Mimi for a number of years–first back in 2009 when she was the Championship Director for the US Women’s Open held at Saucon Valley Country Club.

Our paths crossed again this summer when her organization successfully presented this year’s US Senior Open held at the same location.

Mimi has always been one of the most professional and successful people that I have had the pleasure of meeting, working with and interviewing on several occasions.  She also has a passion for basketball and for promoting student-athletes successes – a trait that many of our current ATVN announcers also possess and look to do each time they put on the microphones.  

While Mimi is still the CEO of her own business, MSG Productions, whose responsibilities include producing and overseeing major golf championships across the country, she is excited about the opportunity to get back into the broadcasting industry.

We are very lucky to have her join our staff…and our viewers will be fortunate to have one of the world’s greatest basketball minds giving analysis on our broadcasts this winter.

Keep checking back to “The SportsTalk Shop” as we unveil more news about our sports coverage and additions to our ATVN Sports family in the coming weeks!

*****

Below we have our weekly high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Emmaus
2. Freedom
3. Nazareth
4. Central Catholic
5. Northampton

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Notre Dame-GP
2. Northwestern
3. Northern Lehigh
4. Southern Lehigh

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

We lead off this week’s blog with a quick programming note!

District XI Football Chair Jason Zimmerman will make his annual appearance on this Thursday’s ATVN SportsTalk.  There are a number of changes this year to the high school football playoff layout (especially for the 6A “largest schools” classification), as well as the site of the state championships and a number of other big issues that Jason will be speaking about.

You can email me, with your question or comment about local football and we may read it on this Thursday’s program.  I can tell you that Jason and our local athletic directors are very busy with a number of challenging issues that they are dealing with at the local scholastic levels and we deeply appreciate Zimmerman giving us his time to appear on our show again this fall to address issues that affect us all.

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We have had a number of great sports broadcasts over the last month, including last week’s high school football game (a 5-point game in the “Christmas City Rivalry”) that was broadcast across the state on the PCN Network.

Here are highlights of some of our recent broadcasts on the Astound TV Network

1. Astound Sports: Easton vs. Parkland (8/22)
   
2. Astound Sports: Emmaus vs. Freedom (8/22)
   
3. Astound Sports:  Northern Yankees vs. Easton Falcons (7/22)
   
4. Astound Sports: Iron Valley Orioles vs Martin’s Creek Creekers (7/22)
   
5. Astound Sports: Iron Valley Orioles vs. Northern Yankees (7/22)
   

It’s a busy weekend for us coming up as we will broadcast the 2022 National Highland Games athletic championships as a part of ATVN’s coverage of this year’s Celtic Classic.

We will also be bringing you a big high school football game featuring undefeated (and the top team in our poll, see below) Emmaus taking on Bethlehem Catholic, who sports a 3-1 record coming into the contest and is also a top-ranked team in our EPC poll.  The game will be live Friday night at 7pm on ATVN.

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Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Emmaus
2. Nazareth
3. Central Catholic
4. Bethlehem Catholic
5. (tie)  Freedom / Parkland 

Eligible Teams from our viewing area (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northern Lehigh
2. Northwestern 
3. Southern Lehigh
4. Notre Dame-GP

Eligible Teams from our viewing area (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

Be sure to check back to our website for next week’s poll results and come back frequently for any changes to our ongoing broadcast schedule information throughout the season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Unlike the first two weeks when we had several surprises, things settled down as we stayed the course this past weekend…which was NOT a good thing for some of our local teams.

On the positive side, the top teams in both the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and the Colonial League kept on winning, with Parkland handing Freedom its second loss of the season on the Friday night “ATVN” high school football broadcast.

Elsewhere, Emmaus, Northampton and Central Catholic stuck to their winning ways and all the top teams in the Colonial League posted wins.  Liberty got a much needed win against Stroudsburg after the Hurricanes had lost 10 games in a row dating back to last season.

On the negative side, teams like Whitehall, Allen, Dieruff, Freedom, Catasauqua, Pen Argyl and Wilson were among the teams that lost again last week, which already makes their playoff run chances that much harder.  Teams that have two or more losses before we get to September 15th rarely make the postseason.  In some classifications, the road to the playoffs will be even more difficult this year based on some changes to the District XI’s seating process (something we’ll be talking about in more detail on an upcoming edition of ATVN SportsTalk).

We have an interesting match-up coming up on Astound TV Network this Friday as “Christmas City rivals” Bethlehem Catholic and Liberty square off.  Both teams are making their first appearance on our network this fall.  A win by the Hawks over the Hurricanes (a bigger “sized” school) will give them more “power points” and greatly enhance their playoff chances.  Liberty also needs a “W” to avoid picking up a third loss early in the season.

The game will be simulcast statewide on the Pennsylvania Cable Network.

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Before we unveil this week’s polls, a few details on how our listings are different from all other local 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 the Astound TV Network and available to watch at any time for free through ATVN on Demand.

This year, we are going to break the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the Astound broadcast area.  With the Colonial teams cross-scheduling and playing teams from the Schuylkill League and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playing different “crossover” teams, our poll will be an interesting barometer for teams in the Lehigh Valley since many local teams will not have the same opponents on their schedule.

Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Nazareth
2. Emmaus
3. Parkland
4. Central Catholic
5. Freedom

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

Parkland, Nazareth and Emmaus all scored wins again this week and remain as the top three teams in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference.  Things got interesting after that as Central Catholic moved up a spot following their win over Easton, while Freedom dropped a spot due to their loss to Parkland.  

Also, Northampton is starting to get some consideration by our pollsters.  However, the fact that they elected to stay in the “North” division, thereby playing teams that are not nearly as strong as the teams in the “South” division, continues to work against them when voters factor in the team’s strength of schedules.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northern Lehigh
2. Northwestern
3. Southern Lehigh
4. Notre Dame-GP

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

No changes in the Colonial League poll as Northwestern, Notre Dame-Green Pond, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh all looked good in victories last weekend.  Saucon Valley is making things interesting with a mercy rule win over Wilson but remains just outside the “top 4.”

Be sure to check back to our website for next week’s poll results and come back frequently for any changes to our ongoing broadcast schedule information throughout the season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

For most of the last dozen or so summers, I run into Nazareth Football Head Coach Tom Falzone and ask him how good his team is going to be the following autumn. Every other summer he downplays his team’s expectations and says his team isn’t going to be that good this season…and most of the time, his team exceeds expectations and finishes near the top of the pack.

This spring he admitted to me, “We’re going to be very good.”

And two weeks into the season, his Blue Eagles have taken over the top spot in our Eastern Pennsylvania Conference poll standings.

As you saw on ATVN last weekend, we had two outstanding high school games, all involving the top teams in our EPC Poll. Nazareth posted a strong win over Parkland and Emmaus scored a five-point victory over Central Catholic.

Nazareth still has a number of tough games coming up, but they cleared their first big hurdle of the season.

Emmaus, meanwhile, has five more very winnable games coming up and should be in good shape for quite a while.

Not to be outdone in the Colonial League, there was a great Thursday night football contest in which Northern Lehigh upset Northwestern. On Friday, Southern Lehigh edged Notre Dame-Green Pond in a one-point win. The close victories will force a complete “flip” of our Colonial poll–below–involving the same four teams but in different positions.

But first, here are the details on our weekly polls.

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 the Astound TV Network and available to watch at any time for free through ATVN on Demand.

This year, we are breaking the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the Astound broadcast area. With the Colonial teams cross-scheduling and playing teams from the Schuylkill League and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playing different “crossover” teams, our poll will be an interesting barometer for teams in the Lehigh Valley since many local teams will not have the same opponents on their schedule.

Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Nazareth
2. Emmaus
3. Parkland
4. Freedom
5. Bethlehem Catholic

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):
Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northern Lehigh
2. Southern Lehigh
3. Northwestern
4. Notre Dame-GP

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):
Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

Be sure to check back to our website for our weekly polls and check our upcoming broadcast information frequently for any changes for our ongoing sports schedule throughout the fall season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or
position of Astound or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Those of us in the media often say that we are not surprised when a certain team beats another team.

But, quite frequently, we can be surprised by the WAY one team defeats another team.

That was the case with many of our week-one contests.

Previously second-ranked Parkland, a team that normally dominates teams with their rushing attack, took to the air to deliver some long (and amazingly athletic) catches, to defeat Easton–last week’s number-five team.

And other teams like Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern and Northern Lehigh, to name a few, not only won their games, but won by surprisingly huge margins.

Last but not least (as you saw on ATVN last Friday), the rematch of last year’s district championship game lived up to the hype.  But it was Emmaus–the team that lost in last fall’s title contest–that surprised Freedom, a squad that most people thought would be the best team in the area.

What does it all mean?  

It should be a very interesting fall.

And now, for this week’s polls…

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 the Astound TV Network and available to watch at any time for free through ATVN on Demand.

This year, we are going to break the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the Astound broadcast area.  With the Colonial teams cross-scheduling and playing teams from the Schuylkill League and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playing different “crossover” teams, our poll will be an interesting barometer for teams in the Lehigh Valley since many local teams will not have the same opponents on their schedule.

Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Parkland
2. Nazareth
3. Emmaus
4. Freedom
5. Central Catholic

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

Parkland, Nazareth and Emmaus all scored wins and moved up in the poll, while Freedom’s loss to Emmaus brought them down from number-one to number-four.  Central Catholic, who was tied for the fifth spot with Easton in our pre-season poll, takes over that spot by itself with its exciting come-from-behind win over Liberty on Saturday night.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northwestern
2. Notre Dame-GP
3. Northern Lehigh
4. Southern Lehigh

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

No changes in the Colonial League poll as Northwestern, Notre Dame-Green Pond and Northern Lehigh all posted solid wins, while Southern Lehigh lost a close out-of-the-league contest last Friday, but holds on to its “fourth” spot in the rankings.

Be sure to check back to our website and check it frequently for any changes for our ongoing broadcast schedule information throughout the season.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

The kickoff of the high school football season is here!

This Friday, the season begins with a pair of great matchups that we will be featuring on the Astound TV Network, featuring four teams that qualified for the district tournament a year ago.  The EPC South Champion Parkland will take on Easton, while the two teams that played for last year’s district title–Emmaus and Freedom–will rematch against each other this Friday.

Not surprisingly, all four of these teams will begin the season ranked high in the ATVN pre-season polls.

Several of the other teams ranked in both our polls will be seen on ATVN later in the season (we’ll have Nazareth and Allentown Central Catholic on our channel next week).

Not familiar with our annual scholastic football polling?

I’m glad you asked.

I’m proud to say (and no, I don’t vote myself) our football polls have proven to be among the most accurate, year after year, among all media organizations that attempt to rank teams in our coverage area each fall.  (Check out our archived polls from previous years if you’d like proof).

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 the Astound TV Network and available to watch at any time for free through ATVN on Demand.

This year, we are going to break the two polls down into EPC and Colonial League schools, within the Astound broadcast area.  With the Colonial teams will be cross-scheduling and playing teams from the Schuylkill League and the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference playing different “cross-over” teams, our poll will be an interesting barometer for teams in the Lehigh Valley since many local teams will not have the same opponents on their schedule.

Below we have high school polls for both leagues in the ATVN viewing area, along with the listing of all of the teams that are included in our respective categories.

EPC TOP 5

1. Freedom
2. Parkland
3. Nazareth
4. Emmaus
5. (tie)  Easton/Central Catholic

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Northampton, Bethlehem Catholic, Easton, Freedom, Liberty, Dieruff, Allen, Allentown Central Catholic, Parkland, Whitehall, Emmaus, and Nazareth.

COLONIAL TOP 4

1. Northwestern 
2. Notre Dame-GP
3. Northern Lehigh
4. Southern Lehigh

Eligible Teams (in no particular order):

Bangor, Pen Argyl, Notre Dame – Green Pond, Wilson, Catasauqua, Salisbury, Saucon Valley, Northwestern, Northern Lehigh and Southern Lehigh.

Be sure to check back to  the “upcoming events” section here on our website and check it frequently for any changes and for our ongoing playoff broadcast schedule information throughout the postseason.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

We are closing in on the start of another school year and a busy 10-month stretch of high school sports productions coming up on the Astound TV Network.

We are also wrapping up a successful summer broadcast campaign.

First up…a look ahead.

Our first high school broadcast of the new season will be on Friday, August 26, with a doubleheader featuring four teams that competed in last year’s District XI playoffs–Freedom, Emmaus, Easton and Parkland.

We also will post our scholastic football schedule here on our website very soon.  I firmly believe ATVN customers will be pleasantly satisfied with a number of key elements for our slate this fall.

Some of our highlights include:

• A significant increase in the number of Colonial League games
• More Northampton regular season football games this regular season
• A bigger variety of teams on our schedule than any other year
• While the pre-season “teams to beat” appears to be Emmaus, Parkland, Nazareth and Freedom (our full “polls” will be released next week here on this blog and on our Thursday “SportsTalk” show), we still have 11 other teams in our coverage area on our schedule at least twice
• All of the “large school” EPC-South teams are scheduled to be on at least three times (most will be on at least four times)
• More live games than any other season in our network’s history

As always, there are still a variety of factors that may affect our schedule.  A good number of those reasons could be completely out of our control, which is why it will be important to bookmark our programming schedule pages and keep checking back to our website throughout the season to stay up-to-date with our sports programming on the Astound TV Network.

We’ll have more on the upcoming high school football season, along with continuing our month-long interviews with local non-football sports as teams prepare for the upcoming fall season, this Thursday at 7pm on ATVN.

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As we turn the page to the fall, we take our final look back at a very fun and busy summer season on our network.

Here are our final highlight melts from our sports productions over the last several weeks:

1. Astound Sports: Liberty vs. Emmaus (5/22)

2. Astound Sports: Blue Mountain vs. Saucon Valley (5/22)

3. Astound Sports: Northampton Giants vs. Easton Falcons (6/22)

4. Astound Sports: Avengers vs Hellertown Royals (6/22)

5. Astound Sports: Northern Yankees vs. Hellertown Royals (6/22)

6. Astound Sports: 2022 McDonald’s All-Star Football Classic (6/22)

All of these productions are still currently available to watch for free and “on-demand” at any time for ATVN customers.

You can also purchase DVDs and Blu-Rays of these and all Astound TV Network productions by calling (610) 443-2909.

Next week, we unveil our pre-season high school football polls along with more insights, predictions and details on the new season, as we approach the kickoff of our 2022 sports coverage in our Lehigh Valley area!

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ATVN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.