HS Football Playoffs Week 1
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.
Special thanks to Greg Joyce of the “New York Post” for being on our “SportsTalk” program last week. Greg had the unique experiences of covering pro and college sports teams in Boston, Eastern Pennsylvania and now New York, and had some great thoughts on comparing those huge sports regions, along with giving thought on the New York Giants, the Yankees off-season priority list, the Red Sox and the World Series, and more.
Be sure to check out our interview with Greg through RCN On-Demand or hear our podcast here on the RCN-TV website.
Coming up this week we’ll be previewing the opening weekend of the Lehigh Valley high school football playoffs with RCN Sports Director Gary Laubach. You can call in or email us with your questions and comments as Gary, co-host Keith Groller and I go over all of this weekend’s playoff games and make predictions.
Next week, the high school post-season kicks off in the DMV region and we’ll have Monet Anderson of Fox Sports Radio DC on the program to get her thoughts on the top teams, games and players to watch.
And, in a few weeks, we’ll have guests on from different regions to talk about the state playoffs in both PA and DC and give insights on the teams still standing in our coverage areas.
Also, don’t forget to bookmark and keep checking back to the RCN-TV broadcast schedule page to see which teams and games we will be featuring each weekend!
Before we get to this week’s polls and predictions, here are highlights of last weekend’s games on RCN…
Big” Schools Poll
1) Freedom
2) Emmaus
3) Easton
4) Parkland
5) Nazareth
“Small” School Poll
2) Notre Dame
4) Northwestern
Our poll structure remains with the same structure that we’ve utilized for many seasons. We take the 400-male enrollment number as the cutoff for schools within the District XI/RCN-TV broadcast area. All of the schools above that number qualify as “big schools” in our poll. These schools consist of Parkland, Liberty, Allen, Easton, Emmaus, Liberty, Dieruff, Pocono Mountain West, Freedom, Stroudsburg, Pleasant Valley, Northampton, Nazareth, Whitehall, Southern Lehigh, East Stroudsburg-South, and Pocono Mountain East. The five schools receiving the most votes are listed above.
Small schools” (below 400-male enrollment) consist of both Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and Colonial League teams — Bangor, Saucon Valley, Central Catholic, Bethlehem Catholic, Northwestern, Wilson, Palisades, Palmerton, Salisbury, Notre Dame, Pen Argyl, Northern Lehigh and Catasauqua. The top four vote-getters are named.
Now, RCN’s Gary Laubach, Tony Cocca and myself team with the Morning Call’s Keith Groller to weigh-in on the four most competitive District XI high school playoff games coming up this weekend…
| The “PICK 4” |
Central Catholic vs. Northwestern | Emmaus vs. Nazareth | Bangor vs. Pottsville | Tamaqua vs. Notre Dame |
| Gary Laubach | Central Catholic | Emmaus | Pottsville | Notre Dame |
| Tony Cocca | Central Catholic | Emmaus | Pottsville | Notre Dame |
| Keith Groller | Central Catholic | Emmaus | Bangor | Notre Dame |
| Chris Michael | Northwestern | Nazareth | Pottsville | Notre Dame |
A reminder, the RCN pollster with the least number of correct predictions will have to do a couple Fortnite dances on our live “SportsTalk” show in a few weeks. Tune in to Thursday’s show to check out who should be limbering up for some possible on-air routines. Also, check back next week here at “The Shop” for more high school football notes, polls, video highlights and predictions.
