To watch today’s state semifinals, click here or go straight to lohud.com/vcsports1. We’ll be showing all three games — Bronxville-Hoosick Falls at noon; Nanuet-Schalmont at 4 and New Rochelle-Saratoga Springs at 8.

I’ll be updating the Twitter feed throughout. Follow it below or become a follower on twitter and read from you phone.

There has been a ton of speculation on here over the last week regarding postseason awards and events, both with Section 1 and The Journal News. Let me set the record straight.

First, there WILL be All-County selections for football in the paper. Nothing will change from previous years in terms of selection. The presentation will just be different due to space constraints. We will still be selecting a Player of the Year, a Coach of the Year, a first team, second team and honorable mention; one for Westchester/Putnam and one for Rockland (sorry, we don’t cover Dutchess in the paper). No reason to panic. It will be in on Dec. 13.

Second, the all-section honorees have been decided but the list has not yet been released. The coaches association usually waits until all of the players are informed. We usually don’t run it in the Journal News until the awards banquet, which is scheduled for 2-3 weeks.

Third, as of early this week there will be NO Senior All-Star Game. I don’t know the real reason why. Honestly, I think this is a total travesty and if the coaches association allows this to happen it’s unfortunate. Almost every other sport has an all-star game, except now in football. The reasons I’ve heard through rumors are unacceptable. Somebody’s got to step up to the plate and make this happen again. It’s not too late.

Hopefully this answers some of your questions. If you have others, don’t hesitate to ask.

In case you missed the announcement on last night’s edition of Varsity Central Chat, we will be broadcasting all three state semifinal games at Dietz Stadium in Kingston on Saturday.

You can watch them by clicking here or going straight to lohud.com/vcsports1.

The schedule:

Bronxville vs. Hoosick Falls, noon
Nanuet vs. Schalmont, 4 p.m.
New Rochelle vs. Saratoga Springs, 8 p.m.

I’ll be providing Twitter updates through the first two games. Rick Carpiniello will take over the nightcap.

If you’re interested in listening to the Class C semifinal between Jamestown Southwester and Chenango Forks on Southern Tier Sports Network site, which you can access here.

Stay tuned for the rest of the day. I’ll be posting my picks shortly (finally).

I’ve gotten to watch the Bronxville football team play several times this season, including the last two weeks. Two things have really struck me.

The first is their ability to block downfield. They’re as good at that as any team I’ve seen this year, maybe ever. They finish blocks. And they sure don’t miss them.

The other thing is how good the linebackers are. I had a story in today’s Journal News about the unit of John Shkreli, Hart Mechlin and Artie Westerfield. Shkreli and Mechlin are both third-year starters. Westerfield is a first-year guy who was lauded by teammates for the time he put in during the offseason.

All three teams still playing are blessed with talent at the linebacker position; New Rochelle has Lou DiRienzo Jr. and Montel Paris; and Nanuet has Gabe Ostrow, Bret Bonomolo, and Lyle Birrittella.

Is that a sign? Do great linebackers indicate playoff success?

As I’ve mentioned this week, I see a clean sweep for Section 1 teams this Saturday in Kingston. Here’s how I think the games will shake out:

Class C
Bronxville vs. Section 2’s Hoosick Falls: Like so many championship teams out of Section 2, Hoosick Falls has put up ridiculous stats this season. Running back Alex Hanson has rushed for 1,502 yards and Mike Brewster has thrown for 1,385 yards. Although blessed at the skill positions, Hoosick Falls doesn’t have the bodies to play with Bronxville; not just on the offensive and defensive line, but throughout the roster. Look for the Broncos to be leading a tight game at halftime before methodically pulling away in the second half against a worn-down Hoosick Falls team. PREDICTION: BRONXVILLE 28, HOOSICK FALLS 14

Class B
Nanuet vs. Section 2’s Schalmont. From what I’ve gathered, Schalmont is a rugged, tough group that finds ways to grind out victories. Rugged and tough would probably be the best way to describe Nanuet, too. Schalmont, which started the season 0-2, is on a magical ride, led by superstar quarterback Vince Gall (2,323 yards rushing). Schalmont, though, doesn’t have Nanuet’s quickness up front and they haven’t seen a trio of backs as durable and explosive as Tom Hanney, Gabe Ostrow and Bret Bonomolo. Like the O’Neill game, look for a steady diet of those three as the Knights control the clock and survive a few big plays by Gallo to get to the Dome. PREDICTION: NANUET 21, SCHALMONT 13

Class AA
New Rochelle vs. Section 2’s Saratoga Springs: If you can beat Monroe-Woodbury, this game really shouldn’t be much of a contest. But I bet it will be, at least for a little bit. There’s no way New Rochelle can come out and match the intensity and emotion of when it played M-W. The Huguenots, as they’ve been at times this year, will be flat to start before kicking it into gear. New Rochelle will complete its mission and be playing for a state title next week. PREDICTION: NEW ROCHELLE 31, SARATOGA SPRINGS 14

Initially, I titled this post “The Faceless Backfield.” Then I realized it might come off as harsh towards the New Rochelle players when the story I wrote today was meant to be totally complimentary.

If you read today’s Journal News article on the Huguenots, you learned one of the most startling facts about any championship football team you’ll ever hear: In 10 games this season, New Rochelle hasn’t had one back rush for 100 yards or more.

Click here to read the article, which is full of interesting facts about the backfield.

Part of it is due to circumstance — New Rochelle has won many of its games by a healthy enough margin that the starters are on the bench by halftime. But it’s also a credit to the unselfishness of the Huguenots running backs, all of which could be 1,000-yard rushers on any other team.

Check out the game by game numbers for the 2009 Huguenots:

DateOpponentLeaderYards
Sept. 12vs. Mount Vernon:Xavier Walker68
Sept. 18vs. Gorton:Jovon Ceneus54
Sept. 26vs. Lincoln:Lewis Edney45
Oct. 3vs. Scarsdale:Lewis Edney64
Oct. 9vs. White Plains:Xavier Walker87
Oct. 17vs. John Jay-EF:Jordan Lucas74
Oct. 24vs. Mount Vernon:Xavier Walker38
Oct. 31vs. White Plains:Sir-Tay Jackson79
Nov. 8vs. North Rockland:Capri Corn78
Nov. 14vs. Monroe-Woodbury:Xavier Walker44

Season rushing leaders
PlayerAttYdsAvg.TD
Xavier Walker663645.53
Lewis Edney543526.56
Sir-Tay Jackson543085.71
Jordan Lucas372797.44
Julian Griffin392245.72
Capri Corn1313110.14

What do you think? Is this the way New Rochelle should be doing things, or would you have the security of a go-to back like Nanuet has in Gabe Ostrow and Bronxville has with Brian Murray? Those teams obviously have plenty of depth, too. But Ostrow and Murray are getting the ball in a big spot.

At New Rochelle, nobody knows who would get that carry. And, after talking to them this week, they just might prefer it that way.

Be sure to check out tonight’s edition of Varsity Central Chat at 7 p.m. You can watch it by clicking here or going over to lohud.com/vclive.

Brian Murray and Blair Law of Bronxville will be our special guests on tonight’s show. They’ll be answering my questions and yours as they prepare for state semifinal weekend up at Dietz Stadium in Kingston.

I’ll also be breaking down the Nanuet and New Rochelle games, as well as discussing the state of the Senior All-Star Game and anything else you’d like to chat about.

With only a handful of games last weekend, I’ve decided to do an abbreviated list of Game Balls.

We’ll go with a Top 5. The Player and Coach of the Week will be announced on Thursday’s edition of Varsity Central Chat, which begins at 7 p.m. Our special guests will be Blair Law and Brian Murray of Bronxville. Click here to watch the show.

Game Balls
5. Sam Stern, Rye Country Day: It’s astonishing to think what Stern has done in his first two weeks as a varsity player. Moved up from the JV last week, Stern rushed for 153 yards and two touchdowns on just six carries in Saturday’s 29-20 win over Hopkins. In two games, he has nearly 300 yards rushing and five touchdowns.
4. Lewis Edney, New Rochelle: The senior earns this honor for what he did on offense in the first half and how he played defensively in the second in Saturday’s 21-14 win over Monroe-Woodbury. Edney expertly managed the offense at quarterback, calmly led New Rochelle on a 71-yard scoring drive after Monroe-Woodbury. He threw a touchdown and rushed for 56 yards before halftime as the Huguenots built a 21-7 lead. In the second, Edney keyed a New Rochelle defense fought off a fiesty M-W attack. The secondary deserves as much as credit as the line for those sacks at the end, covering the Crusaders’ receivers despite Dan Scalo’s incredible ability to buy time. Edney also had an interception in the first half.
3. John Shkreli, Bronxville: If you have a chance to watch Bronxville this week (or next), take a moment to watch Shkreli play the linebacker position. He’s so tough and so smart, covering the field and calling out adjustments. The 6-foot-3, 220-pounder was brilliant in Bronxville’s 34-6 win over Ellenville on Friday, recording 12 tackles as the Broncos dominated the middle of the field.
2. Nanuet’s offensive line: We rarely talk about this group but they really are special. The starting five — Ryan Maroney, Kevin Willison, Brendan Siegrist, Lyle Birrittella and Tyler Esposito — are all 210-pounds or less. Yet they have controlled the line of scrimmage of every game they’ve played this season. This week, they went up against a far bigger O’Neill front and wore them down in the 35-0 victory. Nanuet rushed for 312 yards in the game and, as running back Bret Bonomolo said this week: “They deserve mention. Us backs are nothing without them.”

The Player and Coach of the Week will be announced on Thursday’s show.

Bronxville senior captains Blair Law and Brian Murray will be our special guests on this week’s edition of Varsity Central Chat.

In case you missed it, the show will be THURSDAY this week since I will be attending the Frank McGuire Award dinner in the city. Dino Garr of Rye is among the recipients for the prestigious award.

Law and Murray will be taking your questions as we break down the three state semifinals. I actually stopped at Nanuet, Bronxville and New Rochelle this afternoon and gathered some more info on the three opposing Section 2 teams.

Game Balls will be posted tomorrow morning (just a Top 5 this week) and I’ll be posting my predictions on Thursday morning. A preview: I smell a clean sweep for Section 1.

A story on the Hudson Valley Sports Report website reports that Beacon High School is considering a move to Section 9 because of disatisfaction over the way Section 1 has been operated.

The main gripe is over Section 1’s continuous realignment. The geography-based leagues, they feel, has created “unequal competition” according to Beacon AD Eric Romanino. According to the article, Poughkeepsie, Beacon and Lourdes have been unhappy over the league alignments.

“We’re not happy (with the current Section One league alignment),” Romanino said in the article. “I have been asked by my administration here at the high school to pursue movement to Section Nine. So I am currently on a fact-finding mission to go to either the OCIAA or the MHAL as an alternative.”

Section 1 will meet this week to consider another realignment plan for next school year. The geography-based leagues were designed to cut costs, even at the expense of putting schools with drastically different enrollment in the same division during the regular season.

Great job of reporting this story by Rich Thomaselli, who runs the Hudson Valley Sports Report site. If you live up in Dutchess, you should have bookmarked this site a long time ago.

The games get better in the postseason. So do the postgame comments.

Here’s a look at what some of the most interesting things coaches and players said after the state quarterfinal/CHSFL playoff games this weekend:

“I told the kids, ‘You can’t let one game ruin your season.’ It’s been a great run. We’ve enjoyed it from a coaching standpoint, as a family and as a community. It’s over and now it’s New Ro’s time. You can’t win all the time. I’m realistic. I accept that.”—Monroe-Woodbury coach Pat D’Aliso. Very classy comment by a very classy coach.

“They hit hard. They were relentless, to be honest with you. If one person doesn’t get you down, there’s 10 more coming after you.”—Crusaders quarterback Dan Scalo, who finished with 64 yards rushing on 23 carries and was 4-for-10 passing for 40 yards.

“I don’t think anyone understands what this means to us. This is the greatest feeling in the world. We finally got this monkey off our back.”—New Rochelle senior linebacker Lou DiRienzo Jr.

“I tried to downplay it. But coming here and losing three years in a row took a toll on me, and it took a toll on the kids. We didn’t play great tonight. We’re very happy to get this win and move on.”—New Rochelle coach Lou DiRienzo

“I don’t know which one of them I’m happier for. All I know is that I wouldn’t want to be home with either one of them if we lost tonight.”—Carol DiRienzo, wife of Lou Sr. and mother of Lou Jr.

“We held a meeting after that third loss with our core guys. We could have really gone south there. We talked about a lot of things and, from that day on, we really turned it around. The whole attitude changed. … The whole season, we had to deal with a lot of adversity. I’m proud our guys. Our record doesn’t reflect what we did.”—Iona Prep coach Vic Quirolo

“That’s a perfect case of a little faster, a little bigger, a little stronger. A harder schedule for them, and this is no disrespect to anybody in our league. But the only way to get out of this section is to make that kind of commitment. If we don’t get in the weight room, not just a few guys — but a lot, if we don’t make that commitment, the majority of us, the (Class) Cs and Bs, will never get out of the section.”—Ellenville coach Tony Borriello after losing 34-6 to Bronxville

And finally this from Eldred coach Frank Kean, who beat Tuckahoe on Friday (in the Middletown Times Herald Record):

“To me it is heaven. Every coach in high school dreams of this situation. I am in the middle of a dream and I never want it to stop, I don’t. This is a dream come true for me. It really has. And to all those coaches that have struggled like I have over the years, stick with it because that rainbow is there. You will reach it one day. You just have to outlast it.’‘

If you have nobody to root for in the state tournament the rest of the way, jump on the Eldred bandwagon. Kean is a great guy who’s retiring after 38 seasons.

Section 2, which is the Albany region, has two great newspaper web sites that cover the area.

There’s the Glens Falls Post Star, led by reporter Pete Tobey. And there’s the Albany Times-Union and their football guru James Allen. That would be like having two Kevin Devaneys! Joking.

Both covered the Section 2 tournament and this past weekend’s state quarterfinals. Here’s a look, based on what they’ve written, at what we can expect from a statistical standpoint from the three Section 2 teams facing the Section 1 squads this weekend at Dietz:

Class AA
Saratoga Springs
Record: 9-1
Lost to: LaSalle in season opener,
Points for/againts: 316-13
Offensive scheme: I-formation
State tournament history: Lost in the quarters in 2004; lost in the ‘94 semis
How’d they get here: With a dominant postseason. Saratoga beat Colonie 34-6, Schenectady 32-0 and Ballston Spa 31-7 in Section 2 final. Saratoga Springs had a bye in the opening round of the state tournament.
Team stats:
Rushing yards: 2,602
Passing yards: 635
Stat leaders
Rushing: Tony DeLoatch 128 carries for 926 yards, 11 TDs; Tyler Bates 88 carries for 674 yards, 8 TDs
Passing: Luke Fauler 39 for 85, 543 yards 5TDs, 2 INT
Receiving: Joey Moore 20 rec. for 351 yards, 2TDs
Web page: Check out of the Times-Union

Class B
Schalmont
Record: 9-2
Lost to: Albany Academy, 35-18, in Week 1 and Lansingburg, 42-20, in Week 2.
Points for/against: 361-148
Offensive scheme: Spread offense
State tournament history: This is the school’s first state tournament appearance
How’d they get here: Winners of nine straight, Schalmont beat Albany Academy 32-12, Cohoes 55-14 and defeated Lansingburgh in the Section 2 final, 35-20. Schalmont knocked off Beekmantown 34-20 in state quarters.
Team stats
Rushing: 3,358 yards
Passing: 499 yards
Stat leaders
Rushing: The QB Vince Gallo 290 carries, 2,323 yards and 28 TDs (You’ve really got to check out what this kid has done this season. Click on his player page on the Times-Union site. He’s incredible)
Passing: Gallo 28 for 63, 508 yards, 2 TDs, 3INTs
Web page: Check out the Times-Union

Class C
Hoosick Falls
Record: 11-0
Points for/against: 366-57
Offensive scheme: Spread offense
State tournament history: Third appearance. Lost in state final in ‘03 (after beating Dobbs Ferry in the semifinals) and in the quarters in ‘06.
How’d they get here: Beat Canajoharie 36-0, Granville 32-0 and Chatham 17-14 in Section 2 final. In the title game, HF kicked a 39-yard field goal with 2.9 seconds left. Beat Ogdensburg 51-6 in the state quarters.
Team stats
Rushing: 2,308 yards
Passing: 1,308 yards
Stat leaders
Rushing: Alex Hanson 198 carries for 1,502 yards, 24 TDs. Hanson is 5-foot-7, 170 yards.
Passing: Mike Brewster 97 for 156, 1,385 yards, 16 TDs, 3 INTs
Receiving: Logan O’Brien 29 catches, 358 yards, 3TDs
Web page: Check out the Post Star site

I’ll be checking back in soon with more info on each of these teams. Figured this would be a good start.

All three remaining Section 1 teams will play their state semifinals on Saturday at Dietz Stadium in Kingston. The winners go to the Dome:

Saturday
Class C
Bronxville vs. Section 2’s Hoosick Falls, noon

Class B
Nanuet vs. Section 2’s Schalmont, 4 p.m.

Class AA
New Rochelle vs. Section 2’s Saratoga Springs, 8 p.m.

The plan at the moment is to broadcast all three games on lohud.com. I’ll get confirmation this week.

Varsity Central Chat has been rescheduled for Thursday night at 7 p.m. I’m out of the office Wednesday to attend the Frank McGuire Award dinner in the city. Rye coach Dino Garr is among the honorees.

In case you’re interested, here’s the schedule for State Championship Weekend in Syracuse:

Saturday
Class D, noon
Class C, 3 p.m.
Class A, 6 p.m.

Sunday
Class AA, 1 p.m.
Class B, 4 p.m.

I also want to give a special congratulations to my best friend, Frank Fiore, who has guided the Eastchester girls soccer team to the state semifinals in Class A. Your idiot friends are very proud. Hopefully this success doesn’t go to his head the way the 2002 Fantasy Football championship did.

Updates will be here:

A season loaded with injury and public skepticism has finally come to an end at Iona Prep.

The reigning CHSFL AAA Division champs were beaten today by top-seeded and undefeated Holy Trinity, 27-19, in a semifinal matchup. Holy Trinity led by two points with 30 seconds to play before putting it out of reach with a touchdown.

Tyrae Woods0n-Samuels played the final three quarters with a pulled hamstring injured while making a 60-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. Woodson-Samuels remained in the game but struggled to move around the pocket.

Iona ends the year 4-6. Holy Trinity will face either St. Anthony’s or Holy Cross for the Catholic league title next week.

Mount St. Michael’s semifinal game, by the way, was moved to Sunday at 1. The team had a player die suddenly this week of carbon monoxide poisoning. The funeral arrangements were this morning.