Notes & Thoughts - Week #4 in Section 2 Football

Some thoughts from Week #4 in High School Football:

- Hoosic Valley 20, Greenwich 13: You have to wonder how much the rain affected the outcome of this game, as it made things very difficult for the Greenwich Witches.  Tom Madigan was going to run circles around the Witches either way, but did the slickness of the ball lead to the first Hoosic Valley score?

It could become a storyline should these two teams meet again in what will likely be the Semifinals in Week #9, since the Indians are likely heading for the #1 seed now and the Witches will more than likely be the #4 or #5 seed.

- Troy 20, Shaker 13: This battle of the 3-0's was everything it was advertised to be.  And Troy continues to show that they belong in Class AA.  They have a good nucleus, keeping their composure while they were down against Shaker in the 4th Quarter.

And John Germinerio deserves a lot of recognition.  We saw this last year when he helped lead Troy to their come-from-behind win against the Queensbury Spartans in the A Semifinal, launching an amazing 80 yard touchdown with just over a minute left to play.  And we're seeing this again this year, as Germinerio was responsible for all 20 points the Flying Horses put up against Shaker.

- Averill Park 19, Burnt Hills 16: The Averill Park Warriors scored their first win over the Burnt Hills Spartans in 11 years with a nail-biter in Rensselaer County.  The win, coupled with Lansingburgh's loss to Amsterdam, creates a log jam for the top spot in the Southeast Division, one that may not be sorted out until the final whistle of the Week #7 game between Averill Park and Lansingburgh.

Averill Park's only loss of the season so far was a non-divisional game where they forced overtime before falling to the Queensbury Spartans.

- Amsterdam 35, Lansingburgh 0: You give head coach Doug Edick a week to properly prep a quarterback, and this is the result you get.

Arthur Ausfeld's game wasn't clean, as he threw for 55 yards and got picked off once, but it was better than the 2-for-8 for negative yardage against Queensbury.  His pass helped open the playbook, allowing for Dale Stanavich to be the role player he couldn't of been against the Spartans.

And as a result, you have to feel better about the Amsterdam Rams than you did a week ago when Trey Holloway went down for an injury that will sideline the Junior until the playoffs at the earliest.

- Lake George/Hadley-Luzerne 22, Hoosick Falls 19: The War Eagles win their third straight game with a come-from-behind win against the Panthers.  Shane McCabe called his own number for the go-ahead touchdown and gave the War Eagles the field goal padding with his two point conversion toss.

The loss now leaves the Panthers with only one win in four divisional games, thus already eliminating them from postseason contention.  It will mark the second straight year the Panthers will miss on the playoffs, a strange state of affairs for a team heading into last year having won 6 straight Section 2 crowns.  But the win now places the War Eagles in a good position to possibly make the playoffs.

- Hudson 64, Ichabod Crane 0: If you needed further proof that the Hudson Blue Hawks are off to an amazing 2016 season, here you go.

Mike Alert had over 200 total yards rushing and receiving to help lead the Blue Hawks to an impressive win over the Ichabod Crane Riders, keeping them undefeated and setting up a very important Weeks 6 and 7 for the Blue Hawks, hoping to make it to their first Super Bowl since 2006 when they lost to Albany Academy in the big game.

The last time Hudson won the sectional championship was when they beat Glens Falls for the Class B title in 2001.

- Mechanicville 42, Watervliet 15: Mechanicville is now the favorite to win the Class C Central Division thanks to their win over previously undefeated Watervliet.

Evan Chapman is a beast, with 450 yards rushing in his last two games.  As his workload has increased over the last two weeks, he has been paying dividends, scoring three touchdowns and helping to drive home the ground and pound philosophy that the Red Raiders are executing.

- Albany 26, Schenectady 12: Albany may not be the best team in Section 2, Class AA.

But they're celebrating something they haven't seen in nearly a decade - two wins over Class AA opponents in the same season.   One look at the past in Albany Falcons football will offer you a reason why this milestone is huge.

The Falcons are not synonymous with winning like other programs in Section 2 are.  Their last Sectional appearance came in 2004.  Their only Sectional Championship came in 1996.  In fact, in 35 years, the Falcons have only made the playoffs six times.

So, in short, the 2-2 Falcons have a lot to be proud of.

- Schalmont 54, Albany Academy 19: Two things come out of this game.

First, the Schalmont Sabres are back.  After their 0-2 start where they faced last year's two teams to play in the Sectional Championship, the Sabres have bounced back with quality wins over Cobleskill-Richmondville and Albany Academy.

Until the Sabres meet up with Hudson coming up in just under three weeks, we'll peg the Sabres as the second best team in the Reinfurt Division, but not by much.

Second, Albany Academy had a great opportunity to prove their 3-0 record was for real and they had a great shot at being the top team in the Reinfurt Division.  But in this crushing 35 point loss, we instead find the Cadets as either the third or fourth best team in the Reinfurt Division,

Power Eight - Week #3

Now until the end of the season, we're going to give you our thoughts who the top 8 teams of each classification is, with one exception.

In Class D, because only four teams will make the playoffs, we will limit that classification to four teams instead of eight.

We will post a new list every Thursday.

High School Fooball: Week 2 Recap

Rain impacted a lot of games this week.

But perhaps the biggest game it impacted turned out to be one of the best battles we've seen in Section 2 in some time, eclipsing last year's overtime thriller between Greenwich and Cambridge.  Details on this and several other Section 2 games after the jump.

High School Football: Week 1 Preview

Are you ready for some local football?
It's the dawn of a new High School Football season tonight as teams across the entire North Country and Capital District meet on the gridiron, trying to emulate the success that Shaker, Burnt Hills, Glens Falls, Hoosick Falls and Rensselaer had last year. 

So how will the local teams fare?  Let's take a look:

Troy @ Queensbury - 1:30PM Saturday
Radio Coverage: 1230 FOX Sports Radio

It’s a fresh new season for both teams, and time to put the past behind them and look forward to the future.

For Queensbury, that future rests on the legs of Phil Wettersten, who was the Spartans number two rusher behind Alston Moses last year.  Now with Moses gone, Wettersten looks to be that go-to guy, churning 690 total yards for an average of 7.0 yards per carry last year.

But he won’t be the only one churning up yards of offense, as Tim Voorhis, Kalen Minott, Eric Wettersten and more gives John Irion a lot of different options behind the line.  Plus Aidan Switzer will also be available to generate offense through his arm.  Now, Queensbury is not a pass-friendly team, but can do so when needed as Switzer last year went 11 for 23 for 169 yards, including two touchdowns.

Troy, too, has a lot of experience in the backfield in the form of their primary running backs, Rayshawn Johnson and Maurice Jones. And with a experience line returning with three captains, those two could easily find the holes needed to churn up a lot of offense.

So the task for both defenses is to close those holes and to make sure that the running backs have to work extra hard to gain offense.  Both teams have the benefit of a thick roster, coupled with some veteran coaching.  Both John Irion of the Spartans and Jack Burger of the Flying Horses have a combined 36 years of coaching experience in high school football.

Class A only has 9 teams, and with a 8-team playoff system, all but one team will make it past Week 7.  But that doesn’t mean teams have nothing to play for in Class A, being able to play in front of your home crowd in Weeks 8 and 9 is better than being the road team.

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Schalmont @ Glens Falls - 1:30PM SaturdayMeanwhile, the past may have been rich to the Glens Falls Indians, but they will have to move on.  With the core group that brought Glens Falls to their first sectional title since 1993 and their first ever Carrier Dome appearance now gone, the Indians will have to rely on the new talent to carry the torch.

How good that new talent will be will immediately be put up to the test when they host the Schalmont Sabres on Saturday.  The Schalmont Sabres fell to the Indians in the Class B Super Bowl, but maintain Devon Willis, who churned up a good piece of real estate last year, and is in the top 30 career rushers in Section 2 already, hoping to move up the list as the season progresses.

The Indians were very good at stopping Willis’s run attack for the most part during the Super Bowl last year, but will need new components to work together to do the same this year.  Willis’s performance may not exactly determine an outcome for the game, but it will definitely set the tone.

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Hudson Falls @ Schuylerville - 7:00PM Friday

The team that the Indians beat in the semifinals to move onto the Super Bowl is hosting the Hudson Falls Tigers.  The Schuylerville Black Horses have a new look, from the head coach to the players on the field.  John Bowen takes over the duties for retired coach Greg O’Connor, and now will face a new lineup now that Shane Lyon is graduated.

Shane Lyon was a dangerous threat when holding onto the football, and what made him more of a threat was not knowing what he was going to do with the ball.  Although his passing wasn’t crisp – going 24 for 72 for a 33% completion percentage, it made defenses worry as he ran a lot of quarterback options, accumulating 1200 yards of offense to lead all rushers, nearly doubling the efforts of Dan Waldron, their second biggest rusher at 680 yards. 

Both those players are not with the team, leaving the Black Horses with underclassmen running the show.  Skyler Bateman has experience touching the ball, accumulating 105 rushing yards and crossing the endzone 3 times during his season last year.  He looks to be a bigger threat this year, and so too does Josh Thomas.

The opposite is true in Hudson Falls, where they have plenty of returning talent on both ends of the ball, including junior Geno Brancati.  Last year Brancati was responsible for 8 touchdowns, running 746 yards.  But Brancati wants more, as he told Laura Owens of the Glens Falls Post-Star that he wants to break the millennium mark this season, scoring more than 20 touchdowns.  He also wants to be Section II’s leading rusher, which will be a tough task for the junior with Devon Willis still carrying the ball over in Schalmont.

On the other side of the ball, Hudson Falls is returning back to the defense that brought the Tigers to Dietz Stadium for the State Semifinals in Kingston back in 2008, a 3-5 formation. 
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Greenwich @ Cambridge - 1:00PM Saturday

Also in Week 1, it’s the battle of Route 372 as cross-highway rivals square off at Cambridge Saturday afternoons as the Greenwich Witches take on the Cambridge Indians.  Last year’s matchup turned out to be one of the best games of the year, as the Indians and Witches went to overtime before the Indians would go on to win.

The loss for Greenwich was key as it put them behind both Rensselaer and Cambridge in a division where only two teams make the playoffs.  Two things benefit Greenwich this year over last year without even playing a game – the fact that Class D has gone to a 8 team playoff system, and also the fact that Greenwich is now in Class D North, apart  from Cambridge and Rensselaer.

On the field, Josh Barnes has earned a lot of preseason attention, and with good reasons.  He was one of the top rushers in Section II last year, devouring 1480 yards of turf on his way to 17 touchdowns.  His return gives Brandon Linett some options with his Multiple-I offense.

With a return of 3 of their 5 offensive linemen, Greenwich should be a top candidate to win Class D North.

Cambridge wants to return to the Class D Sectionals, where their time last year came to a surprising end when they lost 27-26 to the Salem Generals in the semifinals at Schuylerville.  It will be tough with a younger squad, notably without Matt Parmeter, who led the team with over 1200 yards of offense. 

Even though Saturday’s cross-highway rivalry will not count towards towards playoff seeding, both teams will want to start off well, and, of course, there is that presence of wanting to be the better team. 

Football's back this weekend!

Queensbury High School, WMML-AM Photo

High School Football starts a football weekend on 1230 FOX Sports Radio and 1410 CBS Sports Radio.

First, we look at the local talent as the Queensbury Spartans welcome the Troy Flying Horses to its campus this Saturday.  Both teams made it to the Class A Sectional Semifinals, with Queensbury bowing out to Burnt Hills and Troy losing to Amsterdam.

In both games, the losing team had the lead at one point in the contest.  But for both teams, it's a fresh new start in a class that could be very competitive.

I met with Queensbury head coach John Irion, now in his 17th year at the helm, yesterday.  In a short interview, he mentioned that he has a wide range of options when it comes to running backs, and also a few returning players that could help push the Spartans to the top of the Class A Northwest.

Phil Wettersten returns as a back option, and should get the main nod for the game this Saturday.  Alston Moses also could provide Irion with a lot of options, both with the run and pass game.


Edit Note: I misheard Irion during our interview, thinking he was mentioning Alston Moses.  Special thanks to Don Lehman of The Post-Star for the correction.


If there's a spot where the Spartans could look rugged, it will be on the line.  Despite returning senior Marc Lambert, the line will be filled with many new faces, which could give Wettersten some trouble if not prepared.

For Troy, last year's loss to the Amsterdam Rugged Rams left a bitter taste after leading 14-0.  But 34 straight points brought the Amsterdam Rugged Rams to the Class A Super Bowl, and gave the Flying Horses their 2nd straight semifinal exit after making it to the Carrier Dome in 2010.

The start of our High School Football coverage kicks off at 1:15PM this Saturday on 1230 FOX Sports Radio.

Then on Sunday, it is the start of the 2013 National Football League schedule as the Buffalo Bills welcome Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to the Ralph.

It appears that EJ Manuel will get the starting nod, which is a huge weight off the Bills shoulders, as the Bills looked to be a much improved team when he was playing in the preseason.  Without him, the Bills offense looked sketchy, especially against the Redskins and the Lions.

But the task remains tough - trying to figure out how to beat Tom Brady.  You can't just take a lead and expect him to fold.  This was seen in great detail in Week 4 last year when the Buffalo Bills jumped out to a 21-7 lead in the 3rd Quarter, but then hit a brick wall as Tom Brady and the Patriots rattled off 5 straight touchdowns to turn the tables on the Bills, as the Patriots would go on to win 52-28.

Bills coverage this Sunday will be on 1410 CBS Sports Radio as the Mets finish their series against the Cleveland Indians on 1230 FOX Sports Radio.  Pregame for the season-opener for the Buffalo Bills kicks off at 11AM, with the first kick at 1PM.