When it came to fleshing out who the top four teams in the league were, Western Class B was pretty predictable. Mountain Valley, Wells, York and Greely were the overwhelming choices to still be playing in November.
And here they are.
Mountain Valley coach Jim Aylward actually predicted his top-seeded Falcons (9-0) would meet No. 4 Greely (7-2) in the playoffs back on Sept. 30, when his team came from behind to beat the Rangers, 20-7.
Aylward said back then he would be worried about having to face Greely again, if indeed it did happen.
But now that his prediction is reality, he doesn’t expect a lot of surprises from the Rangers.
“We seem to have a good idea of what they’ll try to do. We have to do what we do well and not hurt ourselves by getting into first-and-15, second-and-15 situations,” Aylward said.
What the Falcons do well is play smashmouth offense with senior tailback Aaron Arsenault (1,260 yards, 20 TDs) and senior fullback Travis Fergola, and equally smashmouthed defense, led by linebackers Fergola and Brendan Bradley.
In their first meeting, Greely tried to take away the corner from Arsenault and had some initial success. The Falcons countered by softening up the middle of the defense, then tested the outside again late. Arsenault broke two long runs for touchdowns in the fourth quarter and finished with 181 yards on 33 carries.
Aylward wouldn’t say whether he expected the Rangers to take the same approach again tonight at Hosmer Field, or whether the Falcons were preparing to pound the ball up the gut earlier this time to try to open things up on the outside quicker.
“We’ve had nine games to look at what we can do,” Aylward said. “There are probably a couple of things we can do that no one knows we can do and maybe we can strike a couple of big plays by doing those things.”
Greely didn’t get any big plays from its running game the last time they were at Hosmer. In fact, they got hardly any plays for positive yards and ended up with minus-8 yards net rushing.
The Falcons outgained the Rangers, 320-22 overall, but trailed for the first time all season when Greely scored on a 24-yard toss over the middle from Erik Goranson to tight end Andre LaVoie late in the third quarter. Andy Shorey ruined Goranson’s night, however, with two second half interceptions.
Aggressive defense helped get Mountain Valley this far, and Aylward expects his D’ to ratchet up its ball-hawking ways in the post-season.
“You have to play at a different level now,” he said. “No question, our kids are smart enough to know that when someone is wrapped up and the ball’s in front of them, it’s got to get swiped.”
In the other semifinal, No. 2 Wells (7-2) hosts No. 3 York (7-2). The long-time Campbell Conference rivals met just last week, when the Warriors put up 28 unanswered points in the second half to win, 41-6.
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