The tickets have been mailed out.
The tuxes have been rented, and the party dresses are arriving as the
Advocate pens this Preview. The City League playoff matchups have
been set.
In the 'Someone Has To Go Winless'
game, Westinghouse, the smallest school in the City shuts out its
much bigger opponent, the Carrick Raiders 18-0 to finish the season
1-4 in the league and 1-7 overall. Carrick falls to an o-fer the
season.
Allderdice's Cornelius Ray
provided the only scoring for the Dragons picking up a 36 yd punt
return for a touchdown, but the Allderdice offense was completely
shut down as Brashear rattled off 21 unanswered points via runs by
Russell Page and Diondre Harris, and a 56 yd pick-six by Jamal Smith
to pick up the 21-7 win, and the third seed in the playoffs. The
Bulls will take on a University Prep team that laid their beloved
teammate Ne'Ondre Harbour to rest earlier this week. This after the
Panthers lost to Perry in a tight, emotionally charged game 12-6.
The One Stars jumped out to a 12-0 lead off 69 and 8yd runs by Ahmed
Turner. And U-Prep was able to pick up a score in the 2nd
quarter when QB Akil Young threw a 24 yd pass to Marcus Johnson for a
touchdown, but neither team scored in the second half.
With the win, Perry takes the
regular season City League title and will face a fading Allderdice
squad that has lost three of its last four games, and lost all its
games against playoff contenders in the Friday night semifinal.
Perry is on a three game winning streak and while the Commodores
don't have the most prolific offense, that honor goes to U-Prep, they
do have the stingiest defense in the league giving up only 26 points
against City League opponents.
Thursday October 25
7:00pm
University Prep vs Brashear
The
Advocate has to believe that U-Prep was still in mourning over their
loss of a prominent member of their team, and that had to affect
their performance against Perry last Friday night. It would be easy
for the Advocate or any other so-called pundit to say that it was the
coaches' responsibility to get the team past that terrible
circumstance and to put their warrior face and mourn over your fallen
comrade later, and all that. But these are high school kids, not
professionals. As the Advocate said in his preview, anything could
affect their play, especially the untimely death of a teammate. And
the loss to Perry didn't affect their eligibility for the playoffs.
In fact, one could say that last week's game was a dress rehearsal
for the Championship game next Saturday. But now that the Panthers
have laid their teammate to rest, and have dedicated the rest of the
season to him, however long it lasts, they can best honor Mr. Harbour
by taking care of business tonight against the Bulls, and getting
back to the title game. The Panthers beat Brashear 40-12 in Week 4,
and the Advocate doesn't see the Bulls winning this game either.
U-Prep
Friday
October 26
7:00pm
Allderdice vs Perry
This
was supposed to be the 'Dice's year. They had a big bruising running
back, they had plenty of seniors coming back from a team that lost to
U-Prep in the City Championship game last year. But their lack of a
passing game was a contributing factor to their disappointing season.
Perry only beat Allderdice 12-0 in the regular season back in week
Three, and there may be a slight chance that the Dragons can make a
second straight appearance in the championship. After all, they held
an undefeated Brashear squad to a mere safety in a 6-2 win in the
semifinals last year. But Perry is on a roll. They haven't
been in the championship game since 2010, they consider it their
birthright. The Advocate makes it a U-Prep vs Perry match up for the
hardware next Saturday. Perry
