Trying to help out your conversion rate here, rave.
FH and Ridge are definitely the best in the area until Allegany beats either one of them, which I still don't see us being able to do quite yet. It would take either of the former to play a pretty sloppy game and Alco to play very well to and catch a break or two in order to beat FH or Ridge.
What's really good to see from a non-haters perspective is Alco starting to play better last year and this year. I mean we haven't beaten FH in like 15 years. At some point, that has to get old even for FH fans who are very emotionally involved.
If all three area teams got back to playing each other competitively, that would be great for everyone. Ridge has been really impressive with Sefa running things and not using the wishbone anymore. FH has been a very good program for a while now all the way down to their feeder programs, which is a big asset because it's just more important to those kids and they buy in early.
My friend told me that a lot of the best athletes in Alco territory intentionally play soccer over football, which isn't bad, but it's surprising. Does anyone know if that's been the case?
Also, you can't ignore the coaching. I've thought for years that a big problem at Alco was not Bryan Hansel, but his lack of assistants. The Times-News preview I read back in the Summer had some things in it that even I know aren't accurate, but it was great to see that Aaron Kline and Jeff Link are now on staff. Those are two really good guys to have around the kids if you want to keep building the program. FH has had quality assistants on their staff for years and it's proven to be an asset.
