Lou Silva and Paul Sullivan know precisely what St. John’s Prep and Xaverian are coping with proper now.
The Catholic Conference powers are enjoying on Thanksgiving after which once more per week later at Gillette Stadium for the Div. 1 state title. There have been many situations floated on social media starting from cancelling the Thanksgiving Day matchup to even utilizing junior varsity gamers.
What provides to the drama: the Catholic Conference title nonetheless has not been settled. St. John’s Prep would clinch the CC championship outright with a win, however a Xaverian win and a Catholic Memorial win over BC High would create a three-way tie for the title. To take it one step additional, ought to Xaverian win and BC High knock off CM, it will give Xaverian and St. John’s Prep a share of the league championship, although many would declare the Hawks can be a worthy claimant of the title primarily based on head-to-head.
As of proper now, officers from each faculties have indicated to the Boston Herald that they plan on enjoying the sport as they’ve on previous Thanksgiving Days: all-out with the only real function of profitable.
Silva went via an identical situation in 2009 when he was head coach at Marshfield. His group performed the annual Thanksgiving Day sport with Duxbury, then performed them once more in a Div. 2A semifinal contest 4 days later. He acknowledged it was one thing he would have most well-liked to keep away from at any value.
“It was brutal,” Silva mentioned. “Because we were playing Duxbury twice in four days, you really couldn’t put in a complete game plan on Thanksgiving because you wanted to save a few special plays for the playoff game in case you needed them.”
Marshfield misplaced the Thanksgiving Day sport (17-7), however rebounded to defeat Duxbury within the playoff sport (27-6), then edged Masconomet 13-12 to win the championship. As a lot as Silva relishes the title and revenge victory, dropping on Thanksgiving nonetheless stings.
“Oh God, we hated losing that game,” Silva mentioned. “I don’t care if you’ve only played the opponent for three years, 30 years or whatever, it’s a huge game. For us, it was a game for bragging rights and losing that game hurt – it still does.”
Things have been just a little totally different for Sullivan at North Attleboro in 1998. With the previous playoff system, groups just about knew who they may face nicely prematurely (solely league champions acquired bids) Seeing the potential of having to face Attleboro twice in per week, Sullivan tried to be proactive to no avail.
“We did reach out to the MIAA,” Sullivan mentioned. “We were hoping that they could change things around so that we were not aligned with them, but they said no.”
Things didn’t have an effect on North Attleboro on the sector because the 1998 group was a juggernaut. They went on to defeat Attleboro on Thanksgiving, then doubled their enjoyable within the Div. 3 EMass Super Bowl, profitable 33-14.
“It was a challenge having to face Attleboro twice, I am curious to see what Xaverian and St. John’s Prep are going to do. Attleboro had a good team that year, but we were fortunate to have a very good team. We had a lot of really good players on that team.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com