By Aram Tolegian, Staff Writer
You can add South Hills High School football coach Steve Bogan to the list of those who were impressed by Baldwin Park’s showing against Rowland last week. Baldwin Park jumped to a 16-0 lead in the first half against the Raiders before falling apart in the second half and losing 35-29. It was a performance good enough to put a scare into Bogan, whose Huskies visit Baldwin Park on Friday night in their season opener. (To continue, click thread).
“They played a great first half,” Bogan said. “Coach (James) Heggins will know more about what happened in the second half after watching the films. It just seemed like one half belonged to Baldwin Park and one half belonged to Rowland. But they do a lot of things we need to stop. They have got some things going.”
Unlike recent years, when South Hills scheduled itself a difficult scrimmage, the Huskies will come into the game untested after plans for a scrimmage with Colony fell through.
South Hills tried to make up for it by playing a mock game against itself.
“This will sort of be our first game/ scrimmage,” Bogan said. “It’s kind of a mix. We hope we don’t have too many first-game screw-ups. You can only assess so much in practice. We’ll learn about ourselves in our first two games.”
One area Bogan is hoping to learn something about is wide receiver, where the Huskies won’t have Jamie Canada, because of a knee injury. Canada had surgery recently and his status for the season remains in doubt.
Panthers brace for Oilers
When Rosemead takes on Montebello, the game will have more significance than simply being the Panthers’ season opener.
With the Almont League, where Montebello plays, now in the Mid-Valley Division, Friday’s game could go a long way in building each team’s case for the playoffs and potential seeding should either or both make it.
“I’ll be honest, I never even thought of it like that,” Panthers coach Matt Koffler said. “I thought of it like we have a game at home and we’re going to try and beat this team. What division, what league, how many students doesn’t matter to us. We’re going to try and win every game, and Montebello is up first.”
Another statement
Beating West Covina was nice, but it probably won’t do as much for Covina come playoff time as a win over Gladstone tonight. That’s because the Colts and Gladiators are playing an intradivision game that could go a long way toward determining at-large berths or overall league strength for their respective leagues.
When it’s for Mid-Valley Division playoff bracketing this November, there’s a chance one or both teams will need an at-large berth to get into the playoffs. The CIF formula used to factor at-large berths awards the largest amount of points to head-to-head results. It also factors in overall strength of league, so both teams could not only help themselves but their leagues as well.
“We don’t look down the road,” Covina coach Darryl Thomas said. “It’s an (intradivision) foe, but it’s also the biggest game for us this week. It’s obviously important when (every league) only has two guarantees going into the playoffs.”
