To Squash or Not to Squash

September 25, 2008

What do ya wish for? Last year before pumpkin week I basically punted on the idea of winning. I looked forward to just trying to move the ball a bit and slowing Walton’s offense a bit. I had a realism as I knew what we were up against, and that turned out to be the most dominant team in state playoff history. Given that we are somewhat developmental right now, and given Walton’s history in round 2 games, it’s almost tempting to go that way again. Just consider the latter part of that…..Walton is 1-3 against Delhi when they’ve played us in a second game (and it was 2 minutes of Brian Neale’s time away from being 0-4). Overall, I have Walton at 3-6 in those games, with losses against Windsor, Lansing, and Unatego. It is uncanny…..plenty of other section 4 teams have played teams twice in a year, and no one fares remotely this badly. I’m not sure what it is. Incidently, Delhi has only one data point here, as in 2001 we beat Greene twice, quite soundly both times. When we’ve lost the first game, we have a 3-1 record against Walton, a 1-0 record against Greene, and an 0-2 record against Sidney. So, it is tempting to work on development and think about winning later on.

I think that is somewhat hurting the regular season rivalry though. I think this game needs to get some of its intensity back. It’s incredible that Walton and Delhi have played for the section 4 title 4 times in 9 seasons (playing twice each time), and yet attendance seems to be down at these games, especially on Delhi side of things unfortunately.

Wouldn’t this be a tremendous year to shock them? I think that could bring things back a good bit. Delhi has not beaten Walton down in the land of baler twine suspenders in 22 years! That’s just crazy! These players were not even a twinkle in their fathers’ eyes in 1986 when Walton last lost at home to us.

I’m sure the coaching staff is not taking Delhi lightly, though I do think that the general feeling of everyone is that this is Walton’s to lose. Does anyone else think it would be nice to provide some disappointment for 1 Pumpkin Lane? The recipe isn’t too complicated, though it isn’t easy to execute….keep playing run defense as well as we have, that is our biggest strength so far. Then comes the hard part…..get first downs. We’ll need to pass consistently (and their pass rush will make this a tall order, though they likely won’t have as strong cover guys as Sidney and Westmoreland), and we’ll need to break off a few runs.

DK told us our senior year how special it was to be a part of a rivalry like this. I hope our boys this year realize it, and make the most of it.

For picks, I went a middling 19-5 (0.792). I’m getting better this season, but until I can steadily get over 0.800 it’s going to be tough to average that for the season. The season total stands at 56-20, or 0.734. I was kind of surprised at some of my misses, as I was shocked at wins by Corning West over Vestal, Groton over END, and Waverly over Windsor. My other 2 misses were UVE over Harpursville and Dryden over Trumansburg. Let’s look to finally climb over the 800 foot wall…. Binghamton, Corning East, Vestal, Norwich, Greene (should be good though), Waverly, Sidney (good indication of where we might stand in our division, as Sidney faces Bainbridge), Elmira Notre Dame, Newark Valley, Groton, Odessa-Montour, Trumansburg, Union-Endicott, Elmira Southside, Maine-Endwell (another great game), Johnson City, Chenango Forks, Dryden, Deposit, Tioga, Harpursville, Candor, Clinton, and Oxford.