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Someone asked me when I was leaving Saturday’s Emmaus/Bethlehem Catholic football team if, in my entire football watching experiences, I had ever seen a game as wild as that evening’s 50-49 tilt.
My response?
“Yes I have…the night before!”
It was clearly the biggest scoring weekend of games I have ever announced in my career, with nearly 200 points being scored in two games.
Saturday might not have been the cleanest of games, with way too many penalties and two huge (and extremely costly) turnovers, but Friday’s game between Saucon Valley and Notre Dame for the right to the Colonial League crown was as good of an offensive showing as I’ve seen in years…maybe ever?
It was a great contrast of styles between the aerial attack of the Crusaders and the “Ground-and-Pound” Panthers, who were nearly perfect on the few passes they attempted. Great coaching calls, clutch players, spectacular plays…if you don’t care about defense, you would have loved that game!
Don’t forget—all of RCN’s productions are available to watch for free for RCN video customers for two months following their initial airdates. Be sure to check out both of these high scoring games next time you have a chance.
The results of last week’s games around the area fell pretty much in line with what our District XI big and small school polls have been for the past few weeks…
Big” Schools Poll
1) Freedom
2) Emmaus
3) Easton
4) Parkland
5) Stroudsburg
“Small” School Poll
2) Notre Dame
3) Northwestern
Our poll 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 I team up with The Morning Call’s Keith Groller to weigh in on four District XI high school games coming up this weekend (once again, I’m going out on an island by myself with my picks)…
| The “PICK 4” |
Northampton vs. Whitehall | Allen vs. Dieruff | Emmaus vs. Parkland | Saucon Valley vs. Palisades |
| Gary Laubach | Northampton | Allen | Emmaus | Saucon Valley |
| Tony Cocca | Northampton | Dieruff | Emmaus | Saucon Valley |
| Keith Groller | Northampton | Dieruff | Emmaus | Saucon Valley |
| Chris Michael | Whitehall | Allen | Parkland | Saucon Valley |
Check back next week here at “The Shop” for more high school football notes, polls, video highlights and predictions.
