Coaches prepare for Super Six
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
By JIM BUTTA- The News and Sentinel
Representatives from the six schools that will participate in the WVSSAC's Super Six state high school football championships next weekend at Wheeling Island Stadium met Sunday in Parkersburg.
However, for the first time since the 2004 season, none of the six will be from the Mid-Ohio Valley.
"It's strange," Brooke head coach Tom Bruney said. "This area has been known to produce some pretty good football teams over the years."
Bruney's Bruins (13-0) will be in Wheeling on Saturday as the No. 1 ranked team in Class AAA looks to knock off the defending state champions from No. 2 South Charleston (12-1).
Brooke reached its first title game since a 36-7 defeat at the hands of a then-Randy Moss led DuPont team in 1992 with wins over No. 16 Princeton (33-17), No. 9 Ripley (34-14) and No. 13 University (32-15) while the Black Eagles of head coach John Messenger will look to repeat the feat it accomplished a year ago with a win over George Washington (39-8).
South Charleston's road to the finals led it to wins over No. 15 Lewis County (45-18), No. 7 Martinsburg (38-28) and No. 3 Bridgeport (28-25).
"We are just very grateful for having the opportunity to return to Wheeling Island Stadium and play on Saturday," explained Messenger. "We haven't said a lot about it (repeating) over the season because we really didn't want them thinking about it."
All that will change this week, however.
"This team really does not have the super stars on it that last year's team did," continued the coach. "What it does have over that team, however, is a chemistry which has allowed it to play together at times when most teams would have folded."
The weekend gets started with the Class AA championship at 7:30 p.m. Friday. No. 1 ranked Wayne (13-0) will take on No. 6 Bluefield (11-2) in a rematch of the 2004 title game-won by the Beavers, 69-24.
As has been the tradition at the Super Six, the final game of the weekend will pit the Mountain State's two Class A powers-No. 1 Madonna (13-0) and No. 2 Man (12-1).
This will be the Hillibillies' first visit to The Island while the Blue Dons will look to erase the memories of last year's 23-7 loss to Williamstown out of their minds.
- Simon says no: For the third Sunday in a row, Bluefield head coach Freddie Simon elected not to attend the SSAC's playoff meeting held at its offices on W.Va. 47.
The long time coach of the Beavers attended the opening round back on Nov. 8, but declined to join Athletics Director Kim Miller for any of the remaining meetings.
"At this point, there is absolutely nothing in our rules that requires a coach to attend these meetings," SSAC executive director Gary Ray explained. "But, saying that, they (coaches) are hurting their own kids when they don't come."
- Kicking woes: After spotting No. 4 Frankfort a 21-0 lead, the Pioneers from Wayne finally got on the scoreboard.
That, however, is when the excitement really began.
"I said to myself, 'what the heck, we can't stop them anyway', so I elected to onside kick," Wayne head coach Tom Harmon said. "After it worked and we scored again I thought, 'if it worked once, let's do it again.'"
So, the Pioneers, now trailing by only seven, 21-14, went for the onside kick again. And, again, it worked with the same results-a recovery which led to a game-tying touchdown.
With the tide of momentum clearly in their favor the Pioneers went on to capture an exciting 27-21 victory and advance to fourth title game since 2000.
Move over Kenny Rogers, there may be a new gambler in town.
- Public vs. Private: Man head coach Harvey Arms doesn't want to hear fans using the public versus private debate as a means to fire up his Hillibillies for Saturday's first-ever visit to the state championship game.
"This is just a game, like any other game we played this year," said Arms. "The only difference is that it is for a state championship."
- On the road again: Making the longest trip to Wheeling for this weekend's Super Six will be Bluefield, which will travel 284 miles to take on Wayne.
The next longest trip will be made by Man (250) followed by Wayne (243) and South Charleston (182). The two shortest trips will be made by Madonna (30) and Brooke (17).
