It's way too early to write off Central Catholic

FROM KEITH GROLLER

I was at Emmaus tonight and saw Whitehall beat the Green Hornets 27-14 in a hard-fought game that featured its share of miscues and injuries (most notably, cramps).

With all of the delays in the action, P.A. announcer Carl Smartschan was constantly giving scores ... the Phillies, IronPigs and to please AD Dennis Ramella, the Mets, too.

Mostly, though, Smartschan was giving high school football scores. Every pressbox now has someone with a computer or an I-Phone equipped to provide Twitter updates. To me, the best thing about Twitter is getting constant updates during the Friday night games.

And clearly, the biggest reaction was when Smartschan announced the scores of the Freedom-CCHS game. A big cheer went up whenever Smartschan announced that Freedom was leading.

Were a lot of Freedom grads or fans in the Emmaus stands?

Of course not. The cheers were not about the Patriots winning, but more about the Vikings losing.

Any time you have a school that has had success people, can't wait for them to be knocked down. It's certainly that way with Parkland, too.

CCHS and Parkland are two of those lightning-rod schools that outsiders love to hate. I don't like it, but I understand it.

But those whooping it up about Central's 0-2 start, whether it be Emmaus, Whitehall, Parkland, Northampton fans, whomever, should not get carried away.

Central still has a chance to play into December this year.

I know right now that December and the state playoffs are the farthest thing from Viking minds. All they want to do is win a game.

Those looking at the big picture, though, realize that CCHS still will likely qualify for the District 11 3A playoffs and once in, they will be a tough out.

Remember, there are just nine teams in District 11 3A and four of them go to the district playoffs. It's hard to imagine CCHS not being one of those final four.

Taking a look at those other eight 3A teams -- four of them are already 0-2 (Wilson, Pottsville, ES North, and Blue Mountain).

Two more are 1-1. That's Southern Lehigh and Lehighton.

And two more are undefeated. That's Bethlehem Catholic and Bangor.

Honestly, despite Central's struggles, is there anybody among the other eight that you don't think the Vikings would beat?

No question, there are some rough patches on Central's remaining schedule, and remember, it's a schedule that doesn't include Easton and Liberty.

CCHS will be favored against Northampton, Emmaus and Becahi, and certainly Allen and Dieruff.

However, Whitehall, Parkland and Nazareth will be no picnic.

Even if the Vikes win just one of those three really tough games, they will likely finish 6-4 and as one of the four District 11 qualifiers in the 3A classification.

And once into the state competition, anything can happen.

If you're a Central fan, you're worried right now and probably disappointed, but maybe not totally surprised.

Perhaps not enough consideration was given to the people who left the program, people like Shane McNeely, Jack Sandherr, Connor Faust and Jared Pitts.

Their value to the program off the field was nearly as essential as their skill on the field. Faust didn't play a down last year, and yet, his leadership was as important as anything any healthy player could deliver.

This, so far, is another reminder that you don't win tackle football games with skill-position talent alone because if this was flag football CCHS might never be stopped with its talent at QB, RB and WR.

Harold Fairclough and that talented coaching staff that was written about a lot last year now really has to go to work and fix what is wrong.

Knowing the guys on the staff you have to think the holes will be plugged and the execution sharpened.

Central is still going to win a lot of games this year, still going to be playing long after most teams are finished.

So, those cheering these CCHS losses should be forewarned. The Vikings are 0-2, but they're far from done.


http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/