Cincinnati St. Xavier will not become the third different team this decade to repeat as National Prep Poll champion. The No. 18 Bombers, who started the season with only four returning starters -- two of whom were not available to play Friday due to injury -- were beaten in a 13-8 slugfest by Midwest No. 19 Colerain before nearly 15,000 fans at the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium.
Last season, the Bombers were a team of destiny.
Last season, the Bombers navigated through a minefield of a schedule that included nine teams that spent time in the national or regional rankings.
Of course, last season, the Bombers started the year with 16 returning starters and only one key injury.
But do not write St. Xavier off yet. Coach Steve Specht and Co. still have plenty of time and opportunity to make noise this season. But the Bombers had better strap it on tight -- three of their next four games are against current national Top 25 teams.
In addition to an excellent gamer written by preps pendragon Tom Groeschen, the Cincinnati Enquirer's website, Cincinnati.com, has this video feature on Colerain's upset of St. X.
3 comments:
This teams inexperience clearly showed.
The defense came out looking timid in the 1st quarter,then tightened up and played typical St X style for the rest of the game.
However, they were clearly slower than Colerain and were not closing gaps up the middle, or able to beat Colerain to the outside when the option was being ran.
St X offense was ugly. As I had posted awhile back, Ashley was going to be hard to replace. The running backs werent given many gaps up the middle to hit, and dont have the speed or agility to make it cleanly through what they did have.
QB#1 in the first half would only have eyes for one reciever, looking at him the entire time. QB #2 didnt have that issue, but had no presence of mind in the pocket and took lose after lose.
Coach Specht said in the paper that not having Luke Massa in the game was not a difference maker. I disagree, as horrible as this game was for X, with Massa as QB they win, or at least take it to OT.
Congrats to Colerain from an X fan. Im sure we will see you again in about 10 weeks!
*loss after loss
should be above instead of lose after lose. Sorry I didnt read before I posted
From a Colerain fan...
WOW..that was ugly. But, a W is a W and now St. X can be Colerain's Harbin bee-otch for 2008. Go 9-0 the rest of the way. It won't get us the #1 Harbin spot but will assure us #2, no question.
As for the game, I agree with Specht. Having Massa would not have made much of a difference. From what I saw, the receivers dropped most of what was thrown their way anyway so what difference does a QB make? The bottom-line here is that St. Xavier, is not as talented or as fast as Colerain this season and we will all get to see for the first time what kind of coach Steve Specht really is without "The Class".
Post a Comment