Month: September 2014

Middleburg is in the house! My man Fred out in Broncoland steered me to the schedule on the school website. Now, it still had the Clay Rotary at its January dates, but that was easy enough to deal with.

We also updated the Teams Needed page with details on the 15th annual Green Cove Springs Rotary, hosted by Clay near the end of the regular-season.

We’ve got 22 in…with about five functional hours to go. Can I get two more schedules in during that timeframe?

An update on teams needing duals…I am not set up with a calendar or any such thing, really, where I can post teams’ dual-meet availability. That would take more time than I can presently afford, and when I still haven’t even heard word 1 from almost a third of the coaches in my coverage area, it would put those programs at a disadvantage. I have encouraged the coaches to use the email list I have built, which they have access to as part of my mailings out, as an alternative.

Ah, I don’t have anything new to post as of yet. PSYCH!

But I’d really like to see three more schedules in one of my inboxes by close of business tomorrow, so that we can say we have of our coverage area…covered. The schools who are showing on the 14-15 Schedule list as “In” have already submitted at least one version of their schedule (though subsequent schedules from other teams may update their lists). If they’re showing as “Need” then I either haven’t heard from the coach at all yet this fall or I simply haven’t gotten the full schedule yet.

Let me see if I can break that down.

I have not heard anything this fall from the following coaches: Coach Warren at Andrew Jackson, Coach Lee at Ed White, Coach Scott at Englewood, First Coast’s coach (I’ve been told who it is by another Gateway coach but haven’t been able to track any contact info as of yet), Coach Hicks at Lee, Coach Evans at Mandarin, Paxon’s coach, Stanton’s coach, Coach Marabell at Wolfson, Coach Wiley at University Christian (I have heard from one of his assistants via Twitter, but just that he’s a new assistant), Coach Wetherill at Middleburg, Pedro Menendez’s coach, Coach Borgus at Interlachen (though I only first reached out last week), Coach White at Palatka (was told by 2 sources, independently, that he’s returning, but his putnamschools email address bounced), Coach Davis at Gainesville, Bradford’s coach and Coach Laxton at Suwannee.

I have heard from these coaches, but don’t have schedules: Coach Gibson at Sandalwood, Coach McNealy at Westside, Coach Reape at Clay, Coach Cobbert at Fleming, Coach Arthur at Oakleaf, Coach Snyder at Bartram Trail, Coach Muckle at Nease, Coach Avery at West Nassau, Coach Bartolotta at Palm Coast, Coach Di Lisio at Eastside.

Can’t watch NFL RedZone, as youngest boy isn’t allowing me to watch as he’s not getting any homework done. So we’ll check our picks and see how we did (21-5 going into Friday):

PROVIDENCE 62, Arlington County Day 26. I’m actually surprised ACD put up three-plus scores in this one. 22-5.

FIRST COAST 54, Atlantic Coast 17. Not surprised at how far FC is ahead of most local teams. 23-5.

MANDARIN 42, Baldwin 0. Big homecoming win for the Mustangs to improve to 4-1. 24-5.

Hilliard 35, BISHOP SNYDER 0. Ouch. That one hurts. I hadn’t seen much from Hilliard before this one. 24-6.

BOLLES 35, Vanguard 6. Bulldogs make statement win on the road that they’re not done yet. 25-6.

PALATKA 56, Bradford 13. Tornadoes can begin to think about wrestling now. 26-6.

WEST NASSAU 28, Chiefland 22. Warriors on the move back to 3-2 now. 27-6.

Oakleaf 35, CLAY 21. Knights rule Clay County and now, perhaps, I’m off the bandwagon, but it was a 7A team the Blue Devils faced. 27-7.

FLETCHER 56, Creekside 14. I saw this one coming. 28-7.

COLUMBIA 24, Englewood 0. Seems like the Tigers have taken their feet off the gas early each of the past two weeks. 29-7.

Menendez 42, FERNANDINA BEACH 7. St Johns seems to be ahead of Nassau, all things considered. Didn’t call that one right. 29-8.

ED WHITE 40, Orange Park 7. Raiders can start thinking about wrestling a bit more, too. 30-8.

LEE 43, Terry Parker 7. Who had Lee in the 5-0 pool? I know I didn’t. 31-8.

BISHOP KENNY 34, Paxon 12. We should have gone to this game Friday night. Perhaps the next Crusader home game. 32-8.

Cocoa 37, RAINES 28. Vikings didn’t let down, Cocoa was just better. 32-9.

RIBAULT 62, Stanton 0. Ouch. Even when you see it coming….ouch. 33-9.

Fleming Island 25, RIDGEVIEW 21. Guess the Golden Eagles are in the “can’t figure ’em out” group this year. 33-10.

ST. AUGUSTINE 35, Ponte Vedra 14. Jackets are not in the “can’t figure ’em out” group. They’re only going to get better. 34-10.

EPISCOPAL 7, Trinity Prep 0. Tougher game than I expected, but Eagles stay unbeaten. 35-10.

YULEE 56, Wolfson 6. This is the Yulee I expected to see for most of the season. 36-10.

GAME OF THE WEEK: Westside 21, Baker County 13. Forest Whitaker, alas, could not join CeCe Jefferson on the D-line for Baker. 37-10.

So an 18-5 week after a 19-5 week. Not too bad.

Week 5 picks…real quick…went 3-0 last night after an 18-5 record last week. So we’re 21-5, feeling pretty good about our football selections and, with that…here we go…

Arlington CD (0-2) at Providence (4-0). Providence, big.

Good game with GOTW potential: Atlantic Coast (3-1) at First Coast (4-0). First Coast, decisive. If AC can hang, it will really help its confidence.

Baldwin (1-3) at Mandarin (3-1). Mandarin, decisive.

Bishop Snyder (2-2) at Hilliard (1-2). Bishop Snyder, edge. Another game Cardinals have to win.

Bolles (3-1) at Vanguard (2-1). Vanguard’s pretty good…why aren’t they better at wrestling? Bolles, edge, though.

Bradford (0-4) at Palatka (1-2). Palatka, decisive.

Chiefland (2-2) at West Nassau (2-2). Must-win for Warriors again. Tossup. West Nassau, edge.

Clay (4-0) at Oakleaf (4-0). GOTW potential for sure, but I don’t do GOTW’s for teams 2 weeks in a row. Tossup. Clay, edge, but I could be wrong, easily.

Creekside (1-3) at Fletcher (2-1). Nease was one thing, the Senators something else entirely. Fletcher, decisive.

Englewood (1-3, 0-1) at Columbia (3-1, 1-0). Ouch. Columbia, big.

Menendez (1-2) at Fernandina Beach (1-3). Season might effectively come to an end for the loser of this game. Tossup. Edge Fernandina, but only as the hometeam in this long drive of a rivalry game.

Orange Park (0-3, 0-0) at Ed White (3-1, 1-0). Another ouch. White, big.

Parker (0-4, 0-1) at Lee (4-0, 1-0). Wow. Lee 5-0? Yes. Lee, big.

Paxon (2-1, 1-0) at Bishop Kenny (2-0, 1-0). Golden Eagles up against it this week. Kenny, decisive.

Raines (2-2) at Cocoa (2-1). Any letdowns? Not this week. Raines, edge.

Ribault (2-1, 1-0) at Stanton (0-3, 0-1). Not good for the Blue Devils. Ribault, decisive.

Ridgeview (3-1) at Fleming Island (1-3). Clay County rivalry finds Eagles reeling. A 1-4 start for Fleming? Signs point to yes. Ridgeview, decisive.

St. Augustine (4-0) at Ponte Vedra (2-2). Jackets on a roll. St. Augustine, decisive.

Trinity Prep (3-1) at Episcopal (3-0). Eagles look good. Not THE Trinity, either. Episcopal, edge.

Wolfson (0-3, 0-1) at Yulee (2-1, 0-1). Long trip for the Wolfson group. Yulee, decisive.

Game of the Week: Westside (1-3, 1-0) at Baker County (1-3, 0-1). I’m thinking Westside…unless Baker’s CeCe Jefferson goes off like the Jefferson in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Think somebody in Baker sledgehammered his car? Doubtful, kids these days don’t know that movie. Tossup. Edge, Westside. But what a game to repeat a movie montage! Watch Jefferson go over the Wolverine offensive line, leaping at the quarterback…that would be awesome.

Orange Park is in the fold! We have 21 schedules now posted on the website’s 14-15 page. Getting close to the 50% (just need 3 more) by monthend.

Eastside’s coach reached out to me…so that’s a good sign. Getting the ball rolling in more places is always good.

On an unrelated note, I started off Week 5 on offtopic football picks at 3-0, as Bartram Trail, Sandalwood and FSDB all won last night. Friday games’ picks will come later this afternoon, hopefully before 5.

Not a good night for Jackson to face Sandalwood with a day less to prepare. Sandalwood, big, at home.

Bartram Trail needs to beat Seabreeze on the road tonight. I think the Bears will, but only in an edge.

I also am going edge to FSDB at home against St. Johns Country Day. That would have been the GOTW if it were Friday. Best two games on the Friday slate involve the two teams in last week’s GOTW…Atlantic Coast and Oakleaf…rest of the games will get picked Friday.

Picked up emails for Interlachen and Palatka, learned about Lee’s new head coach and his contact info, and also learned that both Stanton and Paxon are needing new coaches for this year. Plus there’s still Eastside and Bradford I need to learn more about.

Oh yes, I added three schools’ schedules to the list — that’s 20 now so far. Today, Raines, Providence and Atlantic Coast all turned in their schedules. We’re very close to my personal goal to having half of the teams in going into October. Just four more are needed. Is YOUR team still a holdout? Let’s fix that.

Our second NEW area team schedule has arrived! Matanzas has sent in its schedule for the 14-15 season…and Flagler County is on the board! Which reminds me, I am still in need of quite a few coach contacts…Bradford, Interlachen, Palatka, Eastside, and several contacts for new coaches at existing area teams (Pedro Menendez especially).

17 are in the fold. Who’s NEXT?

I have Bishop Kenny’s and Ponte Vedra’s schedule in the fold! That’s 16 at this point. We are one-third of the way to having everyone. Go to the schedule page. If your team’s schedule is showing as “in,” I have received it from your coach. If I “need” it, it has not been submitted yet. Is your schedule next?

UPDATE: Clay’s Green Cove Springs Rotary tournament will be moved to February 13-14. That’s a BIG move.

No full schedules came in over the weekend, but we did get two tournament events (both duals in format) where teams were needed. Those events have been updated on the Teams Needed page.

So far today, we have received schedules from Bishop Snyder and from Yulee. Tonight, we added Columbia’s schedule. Clipping along pretty well now. So far, I have 14 schedules in.

Still need best coach email contacts for Suwannee and full coach contact info for Bradford, Eastside, Palatka and Interlachen.