BATTLE OF BLUES
Saratoga’s Streaks host Shaker’s Bison in Class AA semi
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Saratoga Springs’ varsity football team will look to continue its undefeated season at home against Shaker on Friday. The winner advances to the Section II Class AA Championship against the winner of the other semifinal, Shenendehowa at Troy.
The Class AA Super Bowl time and date will be announced at 2 p.m. Friday at UAlbany, however Spectrum News has reported it will be Nov. 3 at UAlbany’s Bob Ford Field.
Last week, Saratoga took down Bethlehem 34-13 to make it through the quarterfinals. It was a good test for the Blue Streaks after several weeks in which they cruised to wins.
Avery Mickle said it was a good refresher for his team.
“We played our toughest teams on our schedule the first couple games of our season, so it was hard to get our focus back after playing some teams that probably didn’t have a winning record late in the season,” Mickle said. “Playing a good team in the first round gets our focus back. We are ready to move on to Shaker and who-
ever is coming next.”
Saratoga Springs coach Terry Jones said getting the first win in the playoffs was great for his team against a strong Bethlehem team.
“Bethlehem, we felt, had a very good defense, one of the better defenses in the AAs,” Jones said. “I was real happy with the way we were able to contain their run game. I think their quarterback and one of their receivers had an outstanding game, probably the game of the year for them, which hurt us a little bit. All in all we felt for Bethlehem to be successful they had to run the ball consistently and we felt we could keep them from doing that and I think we did a great job of doing that last week.”
One of the vocal leaders on the team last week was Mickle, who was shouting out directions on every play on defense to guide the team.
Mickle said he wanted his team to be ready on every play, so he studied to make sure he could help.
“We knew they were a tough team and we knew they ran a pretty simple offense, so I studied the film from the coaches that they sent us on Hudl and really made sure I saw their tendencies when they were running the ball to the outside or running inside,” Mickle said. “I tried to vocalize it to the team, so they could know if the play was coming their way or not and we would be ready to stuff the run and get them for the loss, which really worked out a lot.”
The Saratoga offense and defense were clicking last week in the win over Bethlehem, but committed too many penalties. Jones said it is hard to stop all penalties, but they need to be limited if you expect to go far into the playoffs.
“We had were a couple holding penalties,” Jones said. “You look at the film, sometimes they are obvious sometimes they are not. I am of the firm belief that officials can call a holding penalty on any given play. I don’t know if it is anything we need to clean up from that standpoint, but you want the kids to play hard and sometimes when you play hard those mistakes happen. We don’t want to hinder it, but the more penalties you have this time of year the more difficult it makes it for you.”
Mickle said the team also needs to work on getting big plays on offense and continue stopping the run and pass on defense.
“I thought our offensive line really killed Bethlehem, but we didn’t get very many big plays, it was more marching down the field at a steady pace, at eight or nine yards at a time,” Mickle said. “I feel like if we can get our big play threats back there, we could start winning bigger and bigger. Defensively, we did really well against the run. They passed well against us, our secondary didn’t play very well, but we can improve.”
The Blue Streaks earned home field advantage by being undefeated in the regular season.
“I think everybody wants to play at home, it is a lot easier playing at home,” Jones said. “You don’t have to get ready as early, you don’t have to get on a bus, and you don’t have to deal with traffic. Anytime you get on the north way, you can run into some issues and more of your fans are there when you are at home. Fewer fans certainly travel to away games. Our fans have been great this year. They get out early. You get here at six o’clock they are already in the stands. They are loud, they are boisterous and it is great. It is great having them there, I know the kids feed off that and hopefully they are here again Friday night. Hopefully a lot of them are here this week, we hope they are loud and we want to play for them.”
This week against Shaker, Saratoga faces a new challenge, the Shaker offensive scheme, the Wing T, which Saratoga didn’t face all season.
Shaker (7-1) has used that to run over every team except No. 1 state-ranked Troy High this season.
“They have some very good backs,” Jones said. “They run the Wing T offense, which is geared toward running the football and that is what they do. It doesn’t mean they can’t throw the ball, but they are a run first team. Their fullback is 265 pounds, like I told our kids yesterday, that is Kevin Toote running the football at them, and so we have to prepare for that. They use a lot of misdirection in the Wing T. We have to be disciplined on defense and in doing those things at times, it makes you vulnerable to not playing as fast as you normally do, so we are trying to get them to see the plays as much as possible to get more comfortable with them and see what happens.”