Here’s a picture what the 6A playoffs could look like doing state wide seeding with 4 groupings of 16 teams each. Fantasy Football! I seeded 64 teams which is the equivalent of picking a fight with the entire state….but hopefully they are at least reasonable with the object being to give a visual of potential matchups. I added write-ups (reviews-previews, some stats) how each of the match ups might play out to give it a real feel, using year ending stats, records, etc. Of course it could never happen but still interesting to consider.
Home team is higher seed.
Group 4
1 St. Joseph’s Prep 13-1
2 State College 10-3
3 Garnet Valley 12-2
4 Pitt Central Catholic 10-3
5 Wilson 8-4
6 Hempfield (D-3) 8-3
7 Emmaus 6-5
8 Easton 8-5
9 Truman 7-4
10 Central Dauphin East 6-5
11 Dallastown 8-3
12 Ridley 7-4
13 Father Judge 4-8
14 Norwin 5-6
15 Pocono Mt. West 7-5
16 Hempfield (D-7) 1-9
Pairings and projections
1 St. Joseph’s Prep 13-1 vs 16 Hempfield (D7) 1-9
Hempfield has a gun slinger at Qb in senior Justin Sliwoski but that’s all and that’s not enough as scores against quality show losing to Mt. Lebanon 31-0, Central Catholic 42-14, Bethel 55-21 and North Allegheny 63-28. Without a running game the Hawk’s will pin their ears and raise havoc in the Spartan backfield, maybe scoring once or twice themselves with a shaken Sliwoski slinging it all over the field. They faced a tough slate of cross-over games playing in the WPIAL-Southeastern drawing Central Catholic, Penn Hills and North Allegheny from the Northern 7. But without the personnel to compete, all a rugged schedule did was add to the loss column and beat them up. At 38ppg, St. Joe’s will score at will with Hempfield having no answer for dual threat Qb Marquez McCray (1532p, 543r) and his abundant skill in the backfield in Marques Mason (748r) and Kolbe Burrell (789r)) and on the flanks with Brandon Sanders (514p), James Cherry (332p) and Johnny Freeman (309p). Their ppg allowed defensively is 13 which is special knowing they played high quality opponents in Jesuit-FL, Wood, LaSalle, St. Peters, Parkland and Pine Richland. Despite losing to Pine Richland in the state final, the occasion marked their 4th trip to Hershey in the last 5 years where they won 3 state titles in 13, 14 and 16, with a runner up medal last year. Few programs can say that.
8 Easton 8-5 vs 9 Truman 7-4
Easton got off to a good start going 3-0 then put consecutive wins together just once thereon (ESN-Northampton), going 5-5 the rest of the way in another so-so season for the Rovers. They lost to Parkland in the playoffs 52-10 after being embarrassed in the regular season 42-7 with a highly veteran team that returned almost every starter on both sides of the ball including Qb Scott Poulson who had a strong year throwing for 1972 yards, many to WR Jakob Herres with 1238 yards. Truman went the other way with their option attack under first year coach Mike LaPalombara (formerly at Pennsbury with Coach Galen Snyder) rolling out 7 wins to earn their first playoff game ever. Heck of a first year! They had great speed in the backfield with FB David Akinwande and Halfbacks Habeeb Bab and Enzo Pouloson. So, this could be another great 8-9 game where we’d see if Easton could corral Truman’s option that sputtered mightily against Neshaminy, Pennsbury and Abington, losing by an average score of 39-13, while defeating all other comp by a 49-10 average score. Easton falls somewhere in between those extremes so it could be a good one. Bottom line, this was a breakthrough season for the Trojans (3-7 last year) while Easton disappointed with a highly veteran team.
4 Pittsburgh Central Catholic 10-3 vs 13 Father Judge 4-8
Philly verses the Steel City unfortunately looks like, well, a 4 verses a 13! And that’s a long way to go to have it handed to you by a team with superior talent. But, there is no give up with Father Judge as demonstrated in an overtime loss to Germantown Academy and 7-point losses to Ryan and Roman. Against a wicked schedule in the PCL-Red with a tough non-conference slate against Ridley, Springside-CHA, GA and Salesianum, it’s surprising they didn’t collapse. They do have a pair of talented receivers in Katob Joseph and Steve Arrington who could make an impression if Qb Shane Dooley gets time. While this is not one of Central Catholic’s stronger editions, they are still a legitimate team at 10-3 with their only losses coming to reigning State Champions, losing to Cathedral Prep the 4A champ 40-7 and the 6A champ Pine Richland twice, 47-17 and 42-7. They had issues at quarterback graduating a stellar O-Line, resulting in part with Troy Fisher’s numbers dropping from 1815 yards with a 58% completion percentage to 1127 yards at 53%. About that O-Line, his ratio of Tds to Picks plummeted from 22/5 to 9/5. As the great Keith Jackson always said, ‘how about those Big Uglies.’ 5 Wilson 8-4 vs 12 Ridley 7-4
8-4 is a pretty decent season depending on where you’re from, but in the case of Wilson it is a very bad season, especially with the Lancaster-Lebanon down. Things are off kilter anytime you see Wilson and Central Dauphin (Mid Penn) with 9 losses between them. Others like Cumberland Valley, Harrisburg, Manheim Central, Governor Mifflin, Berks Catholic and Manheim Township had their typical strong years, atypically strong in the case of Manheim Township so it wasn’t a district power outage. Wilson had some impressive skill people in Qb Connor Uhrig throwing for 1678 yards and Ignacion Reynoso rushing for 1559 yards. And they had a pile of good receivers but none that stood out. At 31pp offensively they were typical Wilson but the D at 19ppg was their worst since 2005’s 7-5 team. About Ridley, if the team that finished the season shows up they’ll be a handful. There is considerable talent at running back in Ociele Miller and particularly Kamal Richardson (+1000) plus a large offensive line and senior Nick Layden under center. In terms of production, the Raiders feel back to 2015’s level with 7 wins and an offense scoring 27ppg. The defense was solid at16ppg yield except for the Springfield game losing 42-7. They got off to a bad start but they’ll be there as demonstrated in tough, consecutive home losses to Haverford 17-13, Garnet Valley 24-14 and Marple Newtown 14-12 on the way to a 2-4 start. Ridley, 2-4!? But thereon (after Springfield) they went 5-0 outscoring opponents 35-12, finishing the regular season with a strong win against arch rival Interboro 38-20 where Richardson and Miller were exceptional.
2 State College 10-3 vs 15 Pocono Mountain West 7-5
It was another strong year for the Lions cranking out 10 wins with a sizeable offense averaging 43ppg. While exciting, they were vulnerable with a defense allowing 22ppg that caught up with them in the losses to Cumberland Valley 36-21, Harrisburg 51-28 and Pine Richland 49-21. With a good portion of their skill people back next year, they’ll again be exciting, perhaps more if they can tighten up the D. Their opponent had an interesting season converting an 0-4 start to a 7-1 finish that got them to the playoffs and first playoff win in school history beating Stroudsburg 34-20. This was also their first winning season since 2008 that was almost predictable despite the 0-4 start returning a pile of starters against the soft EPC-North schedule. But with losses to Bethlehem Catholic 58-14, Allentown Central Catholic 34-12, Emmaus 63-13 and Freedom 33-21, you can see this would be too big a stage tackling the Lions on the road especially with defense allowing 31ppg against this offense.
7 Emmaus 6-5 vs 10 Central Dauphin East 6-5
The light and quick East High guys lit things up early racing out to a 5-1 record before collapsing against Mid Penn muscle losing to Harrisburg, State College, Bishop McDevitt and Cumberland Valley (twice) down the stretch. With a 6-5 record and a defense allowing 34ppg, you know they had some fluff in the schedule defeating 0-10 Chambersburg, 4-6 Susquehanna Twp and three other 5-5 teams. Their Qb Kane Everson somehow held up at 5-11, 160, rushing and passing for just over 750 yards. But the defense was too young for the Mid Penn Commonwealth with 2 sophomores and 9 juniors starting or getting significant time. Maybe next year. Also at 6-5, Emmaus, was a great disappointment with a wholly veteran team returning with high expectations. But it didn’t work out that way with their inability to win the close ones, losing to Whitehall 42-35, Bethlehem Catholic 28-21 and Freedom 24-17. East High would have their moments in this match up with a shifty quarterback but the Hornets are more, much more especially at home where they were 4-1 in the regular season losing only to Bethlehem Catholic (12-3) 28-21 (losing a 14-0 lead) before the 1st round loss to Freedom (7-6) 26-15.
3 Garnet Valley 12-2 vs 14 Norwin 5-6
Norwin got out the gate at 3-3 with notably losses to Penn Trafford (11-2), 3-0 (bitter, bitter rival) and Peters Township (7-4) 13-7. But close doesn’t count and they plain and simple just couldn’t finish in those games, dropping them from a possible 7-4 finish to 5-6. They broke in a sophomore quarterback of some promise in Jack Salopek (6-3, 180, 1834, 54%, 8/10), but with no running game to speak of and 7 receivers (4 juniors) with double digit receptions (next year!) it was an uphill battle. The offense averaged 16ppg was of little support to a senior-junior defense that hung tough allowing 18ppg! That’s good stuff….notable stuff against Penn Trafford, Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, Peters Township, Central Catholic and Pine Richland. Nice! Meanwhile the Garnet Valley Jaguars were surprising everyone except us locals with another fine run through the season and playoffs, despite injuries at quarterback (Ryan Hamby and Cole Palis) that saw 3rd string soph Qb Ryan Gallagher get the job done from at least Conestoga (game 10) through the playoffs. I believe Palis had another appearance before being dinged again. The only regular season loss was to 5A district runner-up Springfield (13-1) 14-7, before defeating Central Bucks West, Pennridge and North Penn in the playoffs. A pick-6 brought the season to a close in a hard fought 35-28 loss to Coatesville in the district final. But here against Norwin from the Wpial Southeastern where option offenses are a thing of the past, their offense will roll it up big time. The defense that showed the Suburban One the Central League can match up, beating Central Bucks West, North Penn and Pennridge in the postseason should stuff Norwin’s young group.
6 Hempfield (D3) 8-3 vs 11 Dallastown 8-3
What are the odds of this pairing with two old foes meeting again after already playing each other twice? But that’s the way the seeds fell. Weird. Hempfield, from the Lancaster Lebanon-Section One won the regular season encounter 38-14. They met again (postseason) where Dallastown from the York Adam League again lost but in a tight one 31-28 game. Hempfield’s other losses were to Exeter, Manheim Township and Wilson before losing to Cumberland Valley in the postseason. They have a pile of talent (29ppg) in dual threat Qb Mark Himmelsbach who passed for 1464 yards (61%) and rushed for 1298 with David Martin-Robinson (Temple) in support with 522 rushing and 585 in receptions. Tack on Steve Wentzel’s 944 yards to wonder why these guys didn’t fare better. Look no farther than a defense that allowed 28ppg! Too bad with the talent on offense they had a JV D. The Wildcats also have some talent, notable Nyzair Smith who hurt the Black Knights earlier ending the season with 2092 yards as the #1 rusher in York County. As a general rule of thumb, top team in the York-Adams are often on a par with mid-range LL-1 teams. Given the LL-1 was down this year, Hempfield and Dtown are a little closer in talent making this a game that would likely mimic their recent 31-28 affair.
2nd Round projections
St. Joseph’s Prep vs Easton
Central Catholic vs Wilson
State College vs Emmaus
Garnet Valley vs Hempfield (D3)
Home team is higher seed.
Group 4
1 St. Joseph’s Prep 13-1
2 State College 10-3
3 Garnet Valley 12-2
4 Pitt Central Catholic 10-3
5 Wilson 8-4
6 Hempfield (D-3) 8-3
7 Emmaus 6-5
8 Easton 8-5
9 Truman 7-4
10 Central Dauphin East 6-5
11 Dallastown 8-3
12 Ridley 7-4
13 Father Judge 4-8
14 Norwin 5-6
15 Pocono Mt. West 7-5
16 Hempfield (D-7) 1-9
Pairings and projections
1 St. Joseph’s Prep 13-1 vs 16 Hempfield (D7) 1-9
Hempfield has a gun slinger at Qb in senior Justin Sliwoski but that’s all and that’s not enough as scores against quality show losing to Mt. Lebanon 31-0, Central Catholic 42-14, Bethel 55-21 and North Allegheny 63-28. Without a running game the Hawk’s will pin their ears and raise havoc in the Spartan backfield, maybe scoring once or twice themselves with a shaken Sliwoski slinging it all over the field. They faced a tough slate of cross-over games playing in the WPIAL-Southeastern drawing Central Catholic, Penn Hills and North Allegheny from the Northern 7. But without the personnel to compete, all a rugged schedule did was add to the loss column and beat them up. At 38ppg, St. Joe’s will score at will with Hempfield having no answer for dual threat Qb Marquez McCray (1532p, 543r) and his abundant skill in the backfield in Marques Mason (748r) and Kolbe Burrell (789r)) and on the flanks with Brandon Sanders (514p), James Cherry (332p) and Johnny Freeman (309p). Their ppg allowed defensively is 13 which is special knowing they played high quality opponents in Jesuit-FL, Wood, LaSalle, St. Peters, Parkland and Pine Richland. Despite losing to Pine Richland in the state final, the occasion marked their 4th trip to Hershey in the last 5 years where they won 3 state titles in 13, 14 and 16, with a runner up medal last year. Few programs can say that.
8 Easton 8-5 vs 9 Truman 7-4
Easton got off to a good start going 3-0 then put consecutive wins together just once thereon (ESN-Northampton), going 5-5 the rest of the way in another so-so season for the Rovers. They lost to Parkland in the playoffs 52-10 after being embarrassed in the regular season 42-7 with a highly veteran team that returned almost every starter on both sides of the ball including Qb Scott Poulson who had a strong year throwing for 1972 yards, many to WR Jakob Herres with 1238 yards. Truman went the other way with their option attack under first year coach Mike LaPalombara (formerly at Pennsbury with Coach Galen Snyder) rolling out 7 wins to earn their first playoff game ever. Heck of a first year! They had great speed in the backfield with FB David Akinwande and Halfbacks Habeeb Bab and Enzo Pouloson. So, this could be another great 8-9 game where we’d see if Easton could corral Truman’s option that sputtered mightily against Neshaminy, Pennsbury and Abington, losing by an average score of 39-13, while defeating all other comp by a 49-10 average score. Easton falls somewhere in between those extremes so it could be a good one. Bottom line, this was a breakthrough season for the Trojans (3-7 last year) while Easton disappointed with a highly veteran team.
4 Pittsburgh Central Catholic 10-3 vs 13 Father Judge 4-8
Philly verses the Steel City unfortunately looks like, well, a 4 verses a 13! And that’s a long way to go to have it handed to you by a team with superior talent. But, there is no give up with Father Judge as demonstrated in an overtime loss to Germantown Academy and 7-point losses to Ryan and Roman. Against a wicked schedule in the PCL-Red with a tough non-conference slate against Ridley, Springside-CHA, GA and Salesianum, it’s surprising they didn’t collapse. They do have a pair of talented receivers in Katob Joseph and Steve Arrington who could make an impression if Qb Shane Dooley gets time. While this is not one of Central Catholic’s stronger editions, they are still a legitimate team at 10-3 with their only losses coming to reigning State Champions, losing to Cathedral Prep the 4A champ 40-7 and the 6A champ Pine Richland twice, 47-17 and 42-7. They had issues at quarterback graduating a stellar O-Line, resulting in part with Troy Fisher’s numbers dropping from 1815 yards with a 58% completion percentage to 1127 yards at 53%. About that O-Line, his ratio of Tds to Picks plummeted from 22/5 to 9/5. As the great Keith Jackson always said, ‘how about those Big Uglies.’ 5 Wilson 8-4 vs 12 Ridley 7-4
8-4 is a pretty decent season depending on where you’re from, but in the case of Wilson it is a very bad season, especially with the Lancaster-Lebanon down. Things are off kilter anytime you see Wilson and Central Dauphin (Mid Penn) with 9 losses between them. Others like Cumberland Valley, Harrisburg, Manheim Central, Governor Mifflin, Berks Catholic and Manheim Township had their typical strong years, atypically strong in the case of Manheim Township so it wasn’t a district power outage. Wilson had some impressive skill people in Qb Connor Uhrig throwing for 1678 yards and Ignacion Reynoso rushing for 1559 yards. And they had a pile of good receivers but none that stood out. At 31pp offensively they were typical Wilson but the D at 19ppg was their worst since 2005’s 7-5 team. About Ridley, if the team that finished the season shows up they’ll be a handful. There is considerable talent at running back in Ociele Miller and particularly Kamal Richardson (+1000) plus a large offensive line and senior Nick Layden under center. In terms of production, the Raiders feel back to 2015’s level with 7 wins and an offense scoring 27ppg. The defense was solid at16ppg yield except for the Springfield game losing 42-7. They got off to a bad start but they’ll be there as demonstrated in tough, consecutive home losses to Haverford 17-13, Garnet Valley 24-14 and Marple Newtown 14-12 on the way to a 2-4 start. Ridley, 2-4!? But thereon (after Springfield) they went 5-0 outscoring opponents 35-12, finishing the regular season with a strong win against arch rival Interboro 38-20 where Richardson and Miller were exceptional.
2 State College 10-3 vs 15 Pocono Mountain West 7-5
It was another strong year for the Lions cranking out 10 wins with a sizeable offense averaging 43ppg. While exciting, they were vulnerable with a defense allowing 22ppg that caught up with them in the losses to Cumberland Valley 36-21, Harrisburg 51-28 and Pine Richland 49-21. With a good portion of their skill people back next year, they’ll again be exciting, perhaps more if they can tighten up the D. Their opponent had an interesting season converting an 0-4 start to a 7-1 finish that got them to the playoffs and first playoff win in school history beating Stroudsburg 34-20. This was also their first winning season since 2008 that was almost predictable despite the 0-4 start returning a pile of starters against the soft EPC-North schedule. But with losses to Bethlehem Catholic 58-14, Allentown Central Catholic 34-12, Emmaus 63-13 and Freedom 33-21, you can see this would be too big a stage tackling the Lions on the road especially with defense allowing 31ppg against this offense.
7 Emmaus 6-5 vs 10 Central Dauphin East 6-5
The light and quick East High guys lit things up early racing out to a 5-1 record before collapsing against Mid Penn muscle losing to Harrisburg, State College, Bishop McDevitt and Cumberland Valley (twice) down the stretch. With a 6-5 record and a defense allowing 34ppg, you know they had some fluff in the schedule defeating 0-10 Chambersburg, 4-6 Susquehanna Twp and three other 5-5 teams. Their Qb Kane Everson somehow held up at 5-11, 160, rushing and passing for just over 750 yards. But the defense was too young for the Mid Penn Commonwealth with 2 sophomores and 9 juniors starting or getting significant time. Maybe next year. Also at 6-5, Emmaus, was a great disappointment with a wholly veteran team returning with high expectations. But it didn’t work out that way with their inability to win the close ones, losing to Whitehall 42-35, Bethlehem Catholic 28-21 and Freedom 24-17. East High would have their moments in this match up with a shifty quarterback but the Hornets are more, much more especially at home where they were 4-1 in the regular season losing only to Bethlehem Catholic (12-3) 28-21 (losing a 14-0 lead) before the 1st round loss to Freedom (7-6) 26-15.
3 Garnet Valley 12-2 vs 14 Norwin 5-6
Norwin got out the gate at 3-3 with notably losses to Penn Trafford (11-2), 3-0 (bitter, bitter rival) and Peters Township (7-4) 13-7. But close doesn’t count and they plain and simple just couldn’t finish in those games, dropping them from a possible 7-4 finish to 5-6. They broke in a sophomore quarterback of some promise in Jack Salopek (6-3, 180, 1834, 54%, 8/10), but with no running game to speak of and 7 receivers (4 juniors) with double digit receptions (next year!) it was an uphill battle. The offense averaged 16ppg was of little support to a senior-junior defense that hung tough allowing 18ppg! That’s good stuff….notable stuff against Penn Trafford, Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, Peters Township, Central Catholic and Pine Richland. Nice! Meanwhile the Garnet Valley Jaguars were surprising everyone except us locals with another fine run through the season and playoffs, despite injuries at quarterback (Ryan Hamby and Cole Palis) that saw 3rd string soph Qb Ryan Gallagher get the job done from at least Conestoga (game 10) through the playoffs. I believe Palis had another appearance before being dinged again. The only regular season loss was to 5A district runner-up Springfield (13-1) 14-7, before defeating Central Bucks West, Pennridge and North Penn in the playoffs. A pick-6 brought the season to a close in a hard fought 35-28 loss to Coatesville in the district final. But here against Norwin from the Wpial Southeastern where option offenses are a thing of the past, their offense will roll it up big time. The defense that showed the Suburban One the Central League can match up, beating Central Bucks West, North Penn and Pennridge in the postseason should stuff Norwin’s young group.
6 Hempfield (D3) 8-3 vs 11 Dallastown 8-3
What are the odds of this pairing with two old foes meeting again after already playing each other twice? But that’s the way the seeds fell. Weird. Hempfield, from the Lancaster Lebanon-Section One won the regular season encounter 38-14. They met again (postseason) where Dallastown from the York Adam League again lost but in a tight one 31-28 game. Hempfield’s other losses were to Exeter, Manheim Township and Wilson before losing to Cumberland Valley in the postseason. They have a pile of talent (29ppg) in dual threat Qb Mark Himmelsbach who passed for 1464 yards (61%) and rushed for 1298 with David Martin-Robinson (Temple) in support with 522 rushing and 585 in receptions. Tack on Steve Wentzel’s 944 yards to wonder why these guys didn’t fare better. Look no farther than a defense that allowed 28ppg! Too bad with the talent on offense they had a JV D. The Wildcats also have some talent, notable Nyzair Smith who hurt the Black Knights earlier ending the season with 2092 yards as the #1 rusher in York County. As a general rule of thumb, top team in the York-Adams are often on a par with mid-range LL-1 teams. Given the LL-1 was down this year, Hempfield and Dtown are a little closer in talent making this a game that would likely mimic their recent 31-28 affair.
2nd Round projections
St. Joseph’s Prep vs Easton
Central Catholic vs Wilson
State College vs Emmaus
Garnet Valley vs Hempfield (D3)