Monday, November 7, 2011

6A East Regional Recap

The Good
Olathe East's Junior Williams intercepted three passes
on Friday, not to mention shutting down Olathe North-
west's top receiver, Willie Cauley (ground).  Photo
courtesy John Sleezer, the Kansas City Star. 

**SM West broke a three year streak of losing in the first round of the playoffs by soundly defeating Leavenworth 52-7.  The Vikings had been 0-4 in their previous four playoff games.

**Olathe East was able to shut down an upstart group from Olathe Northwest, much due to a dominating first half that included four rushing touchdowns.

The Bad

**In their first appearance in a playoff game in over a decade, Leavenworth proceeded to allow 31 points in the first half, and 52 overall.

**Of SM Northwest's four wins this season, three came against Leavenworth, SM North and the 'Dotte.  They weren't able to pull the Regional Round magic this season.

The Ugly

**Olathe Northwest's potent offense, which had scored 40 or more points five times this season, only managed a field goal in the first half of their loss to Olathe East. 

**Bradd Strauss' ankle probably isn't a thing of beauty right now.  The talented junior was Lawrence's only semblance of an offense Friday, but he re-aggravated his ankle early in the second quarter, which pulled him out of the game for good.

Regional Round Player of the Week

Junior Williams, Olathe East: Williams, arguably the Sunflower League's top defensive back, had the best game of any secondary player that we've seen all year.  Against the pass-happy Olathe Northwest, Williams intercepted three passes, while limiting the Raven's top receiver Willie Cauley.  The three picks put Williams at seven interceptions on the season, which is now tops in the league.

The Remaining Four

1. Olathe South (9-1): Now that the Falcons are on a roll we might look back on their week seven loss as a good thing.  It seemed to have refocused the talented unit and they've dominated three straight games in a row since then.

2. Olathe East (8-2): Run the football and play good defense.  The formula seems pretty simple, but Olathe East might have it down as well as anyone at this juncture in the season. 

3. SM West (7-3): Who would have thought that after the Vikings' week one disaster (a 35-12 thrashing at the hands of Lawrence) that the team would be in Sectionals, one win away from the Sub-State round?  The Vikings have matured quickly, and who could forget the last time the program was an underdog to Olathe East in the Sectional Round.  Head coach Tim Callaghan may be pulling that game film out this week as a pump-up video for his team.

4. SM East (6-4): Olathe South would probably rather be playing SM West in this round, simply because SM East runs the spread and that formation has created problems for Olathe South at times this season.  Don't look now, but an upset here could make the SM East faithful replace 2010 with 2011 as the best season in the program's history.

13 comments:

Pitt80 said...

One Heart Beep

Slugger said...

Hold the rope

Orange Mooney said...

Alright so I been quiet all season but I just need to say that I am not the cancer. Our qb bruce was man. He trew the whole damn season man. We was on a roll until he wen't and ruined damn near everything.

I am not a cancer.

MahValley said...

You forgot to mention SMNW's 1st win came against ONW. The only good performance of the year for them. They completely shutout ONW offense the second half and drove the field for the game winning field goal. All-in-all still an extremely disappointing season.

Blair tate said...

Shawnee mission east 35 os 21
Smw 28 oe 21

TheImpaler said...

TheImpaler’s Week 11 picks
Last week (4-0) Season (47-16)

Two excellent games this week. Shawnee Mission needs to salvage some pride against an Olathe District that dominated them all season. Interestingly all 6 games in the playoffs so far are rematches of earlier games this season. All of them in the first round were won by the same team as during the regular season.

SMW (7-3) @ OE (8-2) Vikings pounded LV last week and broke their playoff losing streak. To keep it going they are going to need to tackle better in this one. Numerous times the Vikes had LV runners nailed deep in the backfield only to let them go for 2-4 yard gains. You do that against OE and it'll be 20-40 yard gains. Also 3 fumbles for the Vikes, losing two of them. That said, the Vikings probably the hottest team in the league right now with 5 straight wins. Of course the 'hottest team' seems to lose every week. OE won this game 28-21 in week 5, I think both teams have improved a great deal since then. I'm going to be a homer here and hope the Vikes can get the remaining kinks worked out. I'm picking West on the strength of Whitrock's leg. SMW 31 OE 28

OS (9-1) @ SME (6-4) An interesting matchup of styles. OS' big question mark this season has been their pass defense and if anyone can exploit that it's Elliott Faerber. Collins needs to be at his best and Lowe needs to establish some running threat to get Collins time to go down field. Jordan Ward and the rest of the South running backs face one of the better run defenses in the league. South won this 29-21 in week 4. If South can grind out first downs and keep Faerber off the field, the Falcons should squeak this one out. OS 27 SME 24

MahValley said...

OS (9-1) @ SME (6-4), Faerbeer will not be OS's big problem Relihan(sp) will be if he is allowed any cushion. OS's linebackers will probably be gap sound unlike smnw's so the big runs that SME had against smnw will likely be limited.

EagleSenior said...

so is the OS-SMW game at SMW?

Viking Dad said...

Go West!

Viking Dad said...

OS/West game would be at SMSouth stadium. SMW or OE would have the next home game.

Harbinger Online said...

A live broadcast of tonight's Olathe South and Shawnee Mission East game will be on smeharbinger.net at 7 o'clock tonight

alex forslund said...

SMS 49 - OE 3

FootballRulez said...

SME-35
OS- 24

OE-38
SMW-21