ON TO SECTIONALS
Undefeated Saratoga hosts Bethlehem in the Class AA quarterfinals tonight
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Saratoga Springs football accomplished something last week that few teams manage to do. The squad went undefeated in the regular season after beating La Salle.
Saratoga Springs coach Terry Jones said the team did what it needed to do to accomplish the feat.
“I thought our kids played well,” Jones said. “I thought they played inspiring football and I think they did what we expected them to do, go down there and be successful on both sides of the ball and get us ready for this upcoming week.”
The Blue Streaks will be looking for more of the same as it begins its postseason run at home Friday night. Saratoga Springs will take on Bethlehem in the quarterfinal round of the Section II Class AA tournament.
“I think we need to do what we have been doing,” quarterback Wes Englintine said. “We are 7-0 and we are rolling. We have a good offense and a good defense, so we just have to stay disciplined and keep doing what we are doing. I think our offensive came out with a lot of fire (vs. La Salle). We came out and scored, drove the field all the way through the game. It was fun to watch that.
I thought we got a couple good scores in there, our defense showed up as well, so I think we did pretty well.”
With the win, Saratoga moves to 7-0 on the season, going perfect after an injury plagued season last year.
Jones said getting the undefeated season is nice, but there’s still work to be done.
“It is a great accomplishment,” Jones said. “There are a lot of teams that don’t do it and it doesn’t happen every year, that’s for sure, not in the double A’s. It is an accomplishment when you beat every team you played, but that is not our primary goal. What it does is for us is it gets us a home game this week, gets us the No. 1 seed out of our division, but at this point everybody is 0-0 and we are all back to square one.”
After La Salle, one of the big things starting quarterback Wes Englintine saw that they team needs to work on is penalties.
“We need to limit penalties,” Englintine said. “We have a lot of penalties throughout the last couple of game, so we need to stay discipline. Other than that, I think we are doing pretty well. We need to still get better every way we can, but penalties is a big one.”
Jones said he expects Bethlehem to be ready and fight the entire game.
“We expect them to come here ready,” Jones said. “They are well coached. Rick Leach is the head coach down there. He is a good friend of mine, I know he is going to have his kids ready and they are going to come and they are going to be tough. They play really, really strong defensively. They have shown that against the times in their division, including the top two teams, and they run the ball well. They got some good backs and their O-line does a nice job up front. Their fullback is 220 pounds, they user a couple different tailbacks and we expect them to come right at us both offensively and defensively.”
Saratoga will need to continue its solid play to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2015.
“We need to do exactly what we have been doing all year,” Jones said. “We need to move the ball, chew time off the clock offensively and move the ball around to our different athletes, whether it is throwing it or running it. Obviously, we are a run team first, but we will throw the ball more than a lot of other team. We need to try to keep them off balance. Defensively, we have to be tough against the run. I think if we can shut down their run game, then I think defensively we will be very successful.”