If this were, say, 1973 or before, we’d be sitting around waiting. On both sides of town. We’d be two weeks removed from the last football game Allegany and Fort Hill had played this season, and nearly two weeks away from the next one they’ll play, which, of course, would be the annual Turkey Day Game. But this isn’t 1973 as time stops for no one and nothing, including an Allegany-Fort Hill football game; so we find ourselves six days shy of the Campers and the Sentinels meeting for the second time this season.
Smithsburg and Boonsboro proved to be the mere formalities even they pretty much figured they’d be, and for the sixth time Allegany and Fort Hill will play each other in the Maryland state football playoffs, with the Sentinels having won three of those games, and Allegany the other two.
The team that has won the Homecoming Game has won the playoff game each year, so if history is an indicator, Fort Hill will win Friday night at Greenway to wrap up the West Region title. Yet if recent history is an indicator, Friday night’s game is going to be an absolute dog fight just as last weekend’s Homecoming Game was, won by Fort Hill, 17-7.
Eventually they’ve got to split, right? We say this every year, so why not this year? The Campers certainly have to like the chances of it happening, given they played the undefeated Sentinels as closely as anybody has this season. At the same time, the Sentinels have to feel pretty good about their chances of keeping the brief playoff history of this rivalry intact since they most certainly feel they didn’t play one of their better games last week, yet still won by 10 points.
Fort Hill’s defense has been downright smothering this season, having allowed just 76 points in 11 games; and for a Fort Hill defense, this one is kind of atypical since the Sentinel defenders don’t overwhelm anybody with their size. They just get to the ball, all 11 players seemingly at once. So if you’re Allegany, and you’ve already put in a full day’s work with the Fort Hill defense with very little to show for it, do you open up your offense to an anything-goes level, or do you try to re-establish the field-position game you employed so successfully last week in staying close to the Sentinels for the entire game?
For Allegany to establish that field position and for Fort Hill to avoid finding itself in that situation again, the play of the special teams is going to be huge. Fort Hill’s going to have to take better care of the ball when it’s receiving. Outside of their 10 yard-line, the Sentinels are going to have to catch kicks, although Allegany punter John Carpenter did a great job of preventing that last week. As for the Campers, aside from holding on to the ball, which they did for the most part yesterday, they’re going to have to be sharper in every aspect of special teams, which they certainly were not yesterday. Special teams dictate the tenor of every game, particularly one that figures to be another tightly played one.
Maybe it will be because of the night air, but Friday’s game, it seems, is going to be quite different than last Saturday’s game, because I believe Allegany is going to take a lot of chances offensively. Expect anything and everything as I don’t believe Tom Preaskorn is going to sit on his hands and lobby for field position a second time around. Nor would it surprise me to see Fort Hill try to loosen things up offensively as well, although I think the Sentinels’ primary focus this week will be to play much crisper than they did last week and to eliminate mistakes.
A Fort Hill win on Friday would guarantee a state semifinal game to be played at Greenway next week. An Allegany win on Friday means, “Will the last Fort Hill band parent to leave the concrete stands please turn out the lights?” as the Campers will have the lowest seed of the remaining four teams in the 1A tournament and will play for a berth in the final as a visitor. Thus, Friday’s game could be the final game for the concrete stands at Greenway Avenue Stadium.
We’ll say, in a completely different kind of game than the Homecoming Game, the same result will hold true. The sixth straight series sweep occurs as Fort Hill advances to the 1A semifinals with a win over Allegany, and the concrete side lives to see one more day.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at mburke@times-news.com
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