#14 Jefferson…..#12 Hurricane…..#10 South Charleston….#13 Weir….#10 Keyser….and #12 Pendleton County!!! Six teams that according to the seeding were not supposed to win last weekend! But, what’s the old adage……”that’s why you play the game”!
In Round #1 of the playoffs, you always have games where the road team just finds a way to win! And, that is what happened with the six teams listed above. They went on the road as the underdog, and found a way to come home with the victory! So, for their efforts they move on to the quarter-final round and the six “favorites” had to pack away the uniforms for another season. That is all a part of the game! There are winners which means we have to have losers…..and that same scenario will play out again this weekend. We now go from 48 teams to 24 teams, and there are as expected, some great matchups!
In Class A, #1 East Hardy will play host to #8 Williamstown and this just might be the best game of the weekend! East Hardy has been strong all season long having won their first 11 games including a 54-22 victory over a good Tyler Consolidated team last weekend. They have outscored their opponents by an average of 54-11 this year and they most points they gave up in any one game this season is 25 and that was in game 2 of the season when they defeated Class AA Frankfort 47-25. Their opponent this week is #8 Williamstown and the (9-2) Yellow Jackets are playing great football when it counts. Their two losses this season came against the Tigers of Marietta, Ohio and to undefeated St. Marys. This game kicks off at 7:30 this Friday night at East Hardy. Also in Class A this weekend, the 6th seeded Maroon Knights of Wheeling Central will make the 223 mile trek from the Northern Panhandle to Southern WV to take on #3 and undefeated Fayetteville. The Maroon Knights have only 1 loss this season and that was to the aforementioned Williamstown Yellow Jackets. For the Pirates of Fayetteville, head coach David Moneypenney and his team have been in control of every game and that includes outlasting Class AA Nicholas County 44-42 back on October 7th.
In Class AA this weekend, the Friday night match-up between #10 Keyser and #2 Mingo Central has “instant classic” written all over it. The Golden Tornado have an (8-3) record and the three opponents they lost to have a combined record of (32-1)! For the Miners of Mingo Central, they are an impressive (11-0) and would love nothing better than to send veteran head coach Yogi Kinder out with a State Championship. Coach Kinder has announced his retirement effective at the end of this season.
In Class AAA, we have a regular season repeat match-up as #10 South Charleston, fresh off a round one upset of #7 Huntington, will make the short trip back to Huntington to take on #2 Spring Valley. During week number 5 of the regular season, the Timber Wolves went to South Charleston and defeated the Black Eagles by a score of 29-15. At the time, that loss gave South Charleston a (2-3) and in danger of missing the playoffs all together. Since then, the Black Eagles have won 5 of their last 6 games with that only loss coming at the hands of #6 seed Capital by 3 points. This game should be a fun one to watch.
There are a total of 12 games this weekend with 6 kicking off at 7:30 on Friday night, 5 on Saturday afternoon at 1:30 and 1 game on Saturday night at 7:30. Be sure and join Dave Jecklin and me this Friday night on GAMENIGHT because we will have all the scores of the 6 Friday night games, plus a complete look ahead to the games scheduled for Saturday! Do I expect any upsets this week? Yes!! But, that’s what makes playoff football so much fun!
Talk with you Friday night!!