I just took a few minutes to check out the schedule for the opening week of the season, which runs from Friday, Sept. 10, to Sunday, Sept. 12. In my time here it has to be one of the best opening weeks of the football season. Consider the following, all on Saturday the 11th…
Stepinac at Iona Prep, 1:30 p.m.: Stepinac hasn’t beaten Iona since 2002 but this very well could be the Crusaders’ year. Iona Prep has been hit hard by graduation, injuries, defections — you name it. Stepinac coach Mike O’Donnell admitted to me this afternoon: “We have a shot.” Senior captain Brian Byrnes went even further. “This is the year,” he said.
New Rochelle at North Rockland, 1:30 p.m.: Seeing this matchup you’d think it was the first week in November and the game was held at a neutral site. But this isn’t the Class AA final — not yet at least.
Nyack at Spring Valley, 1:30 p.m.: The work put in by coach Andrew Delva has really begun to pay off for Spring Valley, which could be poised to compete in a very difficult league. Nyack clearly has talent but will need time to watch it grow. Are the Indians ripe for an upset against a rival they have handled in recent years?
Edgemont at Croton-Harmon, 1:30 p.m.: Call me crazy, but this is a game I’m very interested in. Croton believes it can adjust moving up to Class B, yet it must open against a team many consider a serious contender to win it all. But Edgemont faces questions of its own. This will mark Matt Bernstein’s first game as head coach, and the program’s first without longtime coach Brian Connolly. Edgemont has championship aspirations but Bernstein won’t have an easy opener to get his feet wet.
Roosevelt at Harrison, 4:30 p.m.: Roosevelt returns as a defending champ on a mission, wanting to prove last year was no fluke. Harrison expects to compete for a championship as well after rebuilding in 2009. Even better, the game will open Harrison’s new home field.
Those are the five games in Week 1 that interest me the most. But others are important as well.
Class B contenders Kennedy and Pleasantville meet on Saturday. Fox Lane and Ossining step into Class AA with challenges against much bigger non-league opponents in Carmel and John Jay-East Fishkill, respectively. Lakeland visits Poughkeepsie and Rye visits Sleepy Hollow in games that include perhaps the favorites in each of Class A’s two leagues.
Because of the holiday there are even five games Sunday, including Nanuet’s first game without so many of the seniors that helped lead last year’s team to the Dome.
Anybody want to pitch other important games for Week 1? It seems like a pretty full slate.
56 Comments
Hey Valley Grad,
Good update. Do you know whats going on across town at Ramapo?
I hear the head coach has a horrific coaching staff and they still have no idea what offense they want to run, not to mention their head coach has not shown up to double sessions yet!
Rockland county is small so the info gets out.
I also hear that Spring Valley will be a force this year. I think this opener will help to define Nyack as to whether or not we are Contenders or Pretenders.
Dats why coach cas went and got Donald Davis cause he know He could not beat the Valley wit the guys he had there..dis gonna be the game of the week…
Ramapo has been horrible for a while they only had the one window when they had more speed than the Jamaican Olympic track contingent&honestly thier lineman are lazy
nyack always gave and always will give spring valley a LOSS, im pretty sure spring valley is still undisciplined kids, hey well lets stop all this talking and wait until september 11
Class B – with all the talk about Nanuet NOT living up to last years team, well , not sure if anyone was at the suffern scrimmage on Sat. , but they played agains , Suffern , Spring Valley and another team from the Bronx. all A teams.. Let me tell you, they not only held there own, they shocked everyone too. Yes they lost many players due to graduation last , however anyone that counts them out this year is gonna be in for a big surprise !!!! , Nanuet as usual is very low key…however , they have some very BIG players that have steped up this year, including of course the retruning Sr’s , but dont count out the Jr’s … these guys have been playing together since 7th grade modified…. keep an eye on Gonzalez , McGreevy , Moynihan and Shoupe and the Sophmores that have also steped up… everyone is in for a BIG surprise if they think they can walk over Nanuet this year, but maybe that’s the idea, let eveyone think that …......
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