Monday, December 10, 2007
Garnet Valley Headed to State Championship!!!
This post is mostly intended for the GV alums on here. For those who don't know, Garnet Valley is the high school that Brian, Cockster, Shawn and I attended.
Back when we went there it was a small, barely Class AA school (Pennsylvania breaks its sports into four classifications based on enrollment..Class A, AA, AAA and AAAA). Anywho, the concept of the Jaguars playing for a state championship in football was pretty unheard of back then because we were so small. My freshmen year we had 29 players on the team. But the area has ballooned up and Friday Garnet Valley plays in the state championship for the first time ever and does it at the Class AAA level. Amazingly, GV will be Class AAAA next year.
Who would have ever thought that? Then again, who would have ever thought that Garnet Valley would play for the state title? The Jags are 13-1 and have traveled quite a road to get to Hershey. In districts, they beat three-time state champion Strath Haven, top-seeded and undefeated Unionville (the only team to beat GV) and second-seeded Pottsgrove all on the road. Then they rallied from 10 and 13-point deficits to defeat West Scranton and Lampeter-Strasburg in the state playoffs. They won the Eastern Final in the last two minutes on a 70-yard touchdown pass. Great stuff.
This is the first time GV has ever gone to a state final in anything (although if our baseball coach didn't screw things up in the 1994 Class AA state quarterfinals we probably would have went there that year...but I'm over that), so as you can tell I'm pretty excited.
Personally, it's nice to see this happening to Coach Mike Ricci, who has been there since 1986 (except for 1990). He's a great coach, teacher and person and he is almost a sure bet to get Class AAA state coach of the year since their opponent in the state final Thomas Jefferson is a perennial powerhouse that was picked to win it all before the season started. Ricci coached me in baseball and football and the thing is he always get the absolute most from us. I always believed if he had more numbers, more talent the program would do great things and that is happening now.
GV will be heavy underdogs this week against a powerful and fast team but I believe it will take the title.
GO JAGS!
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