For those who haven't been listening to what I've said over the last couple weeks, here is the message again... Harbor Beach is the real deal. They walked all over Ubly tonight in a true beatdown.
Now don't think I'm disrespecting the Bearcats, but Harbor Beach just physically dominated them to the tune of 318 yards rushing. Brett Buchholz had three scores, while Brion Gornowich added two.
Gornowich left the field near the end of the third or early in the fourth (with some unknown injury) and coach Troy Schelke said the team doctor thought he would be fine, which is a big relief to the team. They will need a big, bruising back like Gornowich to help eat clock against Marlette next Friday. The Red Raiders were 40-6 winners over Sandusky who have officially become the worst team in the GTE after Brown City beat Mayville this week 34-26.
Marlette beat Cass City last week 60-33, the same Red Hawks who were double OT losers to Bad Axe. The Hatchets should make a move over the Red Hawks in next week's Elite 8 poll, but they MAY end up behind Lakers.
That's right, EPBP who is 7th in last week's poll may jump over both BA and CC as they walloped USA 32-8. That result has to be even more shocking then the margin of victory in the HB/Ubly game.
Back to that game, while Gornowich's injury does not appear to be serious, Grant Pichla broke his tibia on the second play of the game and will miss the rest of the season. His basketball season may be in jeopardy as well.
While may Ubly fans will look at the score and point to Pichla's absence as the reason for it, well they are right and they are wrong. With Pichla in the game, the team is better on offense and defense. Defenses can't key on Cody David, Nathan Forman and/or Mitch Cleary as much as they did.
However, would he have been the difference to bring Ubly to a win... no. He has had many great games, but he can't play every position on the field. And truly the game was lost, because the Ubly defense had no ability to stop the Pirates on offense.
Their run game is incredible, but their defense is even better. Harbor Beach has allowed an average of six ppg this season and over the last 102 games prior to tonight's contest (or 10 years worth of games), the Pirates have only allowed 14.4 ppg. That is impressive, because those stats include years when Harbor Beach had losing records and didn't make the playoffs.
The Aftermath:In my mind, Beach won the GTE title tonight. Although Marlette and Deckerville will be tough, the Pirates are a class above both of those teams.
The Bearcats minus Kaufman (who will be getting his collarbone checked out at the doc's on Monday) and Pichla, will really have to fight to make the playoffs this year. They are 2-2 and will beat Brown City and Sandusky, but would need two out of three wins against EPBP, Deckerville and Bad Axe.
It would have seemed easy in the past, Lakers and the Hatchets have been gimmes in recent years, but not anymore.
USA... what do we make of USA? Impressive against Ubly and BCAS and played well in a loss to HB. So how did they ever lose to Lakers? My first question was who was hurt, who quit the team or who was out for other reasons, because it simply didn't seem logical that EPBP could knock off USA with such ease otherwise. Not to take away from the Lakers, but USA is a proven commodity and the Lakers haven't been in recent years.
Now with this win, EPBP becomes a potential playoff team. At 2-2 they need four more wins. They aren't getting it against Reese, but have very winnable games against Ubly, BCAS, BAd Axe and Sandusky. Even if the team split those games and went 4-5 it would be an improvement, but I smell playoffs... if they keep this up and beat Ubly next Friday.
The Hatchets, who are now 5-1 against CC in week four games, can make the playoffs by winning 4-of-5. They've got their loss to Reese out of the way already,and should get wins over BCAS and Sandusky, leaving them needing two wins out of the remaining three games to make it to the post-season: Ubly, EPBP and USA. After what we've seen this week, all of these opponents are beatable.
As for the Red Hawks, they are not out of the hunt either. They've got a tough opponent in USA next week and Reese the following week. If they could come out of the game with the rockets at 3-3 they have the scheduled wins coming against BCAS and BV. Almont, who is off to a 3-0 start (no result in from their game yet), would be a tough to have to beat to get in.
Let's not forget our friends in the NCTL North Huron and Owen-Gage (sorry but I couldn't connect them earlier on). North Huron crushed rival 50-0... so much for the Cardinals streak of consective playoff appearances... that one officially ended tonight folks, even if there is a lot of season to play. This win should set up a week 7 showdown on Saturday afternoon with Peck, which will decide an outright NCTL champ. I give the Warriors the edge in that game and think they finish the season at 8-1 or 9-0.
As for the Bulldogs... here was a team that looked like they might not win a game this season and might lose to A-Fairgrove, who was competitive with CPS in week three (the Vikings were 44-24 losers to Dryden)and they stick with Memphis. I think that was an aberration and more a sign of how the team go up for a game with a team they have a lot of bad blood with. I don't know if they can susatin it. I still they they go 0-9, but more importantly I think this proves once and for all the biggest all time fraud in high school football is Memphis.
Every year this C team hiding in the D league NCTL, gets destroyed by someone in football when they play teams who are "their own size." Now the Yellowjackets got a lot of credit for the comeback win against Kingston, but then they almost lose to the Bulldogs. I think Memphis just isn't as good as everyone thinks.
Sorry it took so long for this post to go up, but I have been working on it for like an hour.
This has been a funny football season. Maybe with volleyball during the week instead of girls basketball, maybe the moon is full, but it seems like one week a team is a favorite to make a long playoff run, then they lose one they shouldn't and the world turns on them, only to be back on the bandwagon again after another important victory.
