The best week of high school football each year begins Wednesday night and won’t end until Saturday. The Thanksgiving Day rivalries followed by top flight playoff showdowns will fill the sky with footballs. The weather this year looks perfect and fans can sit back and enjoy four straight days of awesome action.
The Turkey Day action includes Haverford @ Upper Darby, Sun Valley @ Chichester, Phoenixville @ Spring-Ford and Pottstown @ Owen J Roberts to name a few. Some of the teams playing on Thanksgiving will keep their uniforms on for playoff games on Saturday. This includes Pennridge and Spring-Ford.
Week twelve predictions took a hit as this future teller went 2-3. Pennridge and Coatesville won as predicted however Academy Park, Ridley and Pottsgrove dropped hard fought contests that accounted for the three failed predictions.
The last six years the prognostication record stands at 305-122 while going 38-17 for the 2012 season.
This third week of the playoff season offers another great set of games for local fans to check out. Let’s get right on with the predictions
The surprising matchup for the District One AAA championship features West Chester Henderson and Interboro at Plymouth Whitemarsh on Friday night. The Bucs shocked Del-Val rival Academy Park in their semi-final game with two late TD’s and a 22-21 victory. Just two weeks earlier Academy Park defeated Interboro for the first time in 18 years and won the Del-Val League title with a 49-26 margin. The rematch was looking great for the Knights until the Bucs scored two touchdowns in the last 4:38 minutes of the game to ruin the Academy Park playoff run. The Warriors from West Chester Henderson also defeated a higher seed when they defeated number one seed Pottsgrove 31-28. Henderson enters this game as the favorite but Interboro plays to every whistle and won’t go down easy. Will go with the favorite but not by much.
West Chester Henderson 27 Interboro 24
In the semi-finals of AAAA District One Spring-Ford travels to Pennridge for a chance to move on to the District One Final next week. This game will be played Saturday afternoon to give both squads an extra day rest to recover from their Thanksgiving Day games. Spring-Ford turned five Ridley turnovers into 28 first half points but they needed a tough defensive stand in the final moments of that game to hold on to a 28-26 win. Pennridge faced a similar challenge with their win over Pennsbury. They used up their early lead and won when Pennsbury missed an extra point conversion for a 28-27 victory. The bet here is that Pennridge can out last Spring-Ford.
Pennridge 30 Spring-Ford 24
The next game to watch involves what many consider the favorite now to win AAAA District One the Coatesville Red Raiders as the host the red hot Neshaminy Redskins. While the Redskins entered the playoffs with three losses they have upset higher seeds Plymouth Whitemarsh and Central Bucks South to make it to the semi-finals. Coatesville has scored 80 total points in the two playoff wins over Unionville and Wissahickon. It will be tough to match that average against the Neshaminy defense but they should score enough to win this contest.
Coatesville 31 Neshaminy 21
Just can’t ignore a couple of those Turkey day specials. Upper Darby will host Haverford for the 91st time since 1921. Haverford won last year’s contest with a 21-16 win on their home field. Upper Darby has had a tough year but leads this series 44-40-6. Haverford lost their first round playoff game a few weeks ago and would love to end the season on a winning note.
Haverford 27 Upper Darby 13
On Wednesday night Spring-Ford opens its two game weekend by hosting Phoenixville. They warm up for their playoff game with a win.
Spring-Ford 34 Phoenixville 20
3 Responses
Let’s get this done Henderson, finish what you started. Go Warriors!!
I smell upset! Neshaminy wins a close one! Pennridge will also win!!!
Reverse the Pennridge score & you got it.
Don’t think it will be that close at Coatesville