by Gary Danforth
This Friday night, October 24, the Hoosick Falls Central School football team (6-1) will be riding a five game winning streak into their Class C, Section Two quarterfinal match up with visiting Watervliet High School (5-2) at the Route 22 field. Hoosick Falls disposed of Class B size Cobleskill-Richmondville last Friday evening in Cobleskill to the tune of 34-20.
In other Class C action, Schuylerville secured the Class C North division championship for themselves when they thrashed Cambridge 49-23. Cambridge was trying to gain a share of the divisional crown with a win over the Black Horses and with an Indian win a slice of the title would also have been gained by HFCS as all three schools would have ended up with 5-1 divisional marks. After Schuylerville got done trampling the Indians, the Horses ended up 6-0, HFCS ended up 5-1 and Cambridge ended up 4-2 in divisional play. Corinth got the other North division playoff spot. In sectional football play only the top eight teams make the playoff bracket with other schools playing crossover games.
Schuylerville, the top seeded North division team, will face off against fourth seed South division foe Brittonkill-Tamarac Central School. The Bengals ended up 4-3 while Schuylerville is 7-0. The top South seed is Chatham Central School (7-0) who will take on fourth seeded Corinth Central School (4-3) of the North division. Third seeded Cambridge (4-3) in the North division will travel to Fonda-Fultonville (6-1) to take on the Braves, the second seed in the South division.
HFCS will have its hands full with an experienced, senior laden Watervliet team. Watervliet’s only losses to date were to Chatham and Fonda-Fultonville, seeded ahead of the Cannoneers. The Cannoneers knocked Hoosick Falls out of the sectional semi-final in 2002. Watervliet, like HFCS, has a balanced running and passing attack. Hoosick Falls has found ways to win six of their seven games to date with their only loss in week two to Schuylerville. It’s going to take a very good effort on both sides of the ball for Hoosick Falls to beat Watervliet. But playing at home, in front of the home fans, at night, with Watervliet usually playing their home games on Saturday afternoons, may favor HFCS. I like the Panthers to win by a 21-20 margin. But cold, rainy weather on Friday night could hamper the Panthers’ passing game. In other Class C match-ups in sectional quarterfinal action I’ll take Schuylerville over a tough Brittonkill-Tamarac team, Fonda winning over a young, but improving Cambridge squad and Chatham advancing over an upset minded Corinth team, which can score a lot of points but has trouble holding other teams down. The two highest remaining seeds get home games for the sectional semi-finals. Let the games begin as the road to Syracuse’s Carrier Dome starts with first round sectional playoff action.