Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One of these days I'm going to make a homecoming game in Cumberland. I've always wanted to. What a great tradition. And yes, Allegany teams are almost always (99% of the time) than those to the East in WaCo. Little 1A Fort Hill either beat or just barely lost to 4A giant TJ in Frederick a few years ago. I was impressed.
Seriously, is youth football big up there? There is a league here, and kids from all over the county are in it. One thing I notice that is different in Frederick County is that the "feeder schools" have teams or even leagues and play the the other feeder teams. I think kids get used to playing with each other at an early age and it helps them gel throughout their youth. Urbana and Linganore have solid youth programs.
Both North and South Hagerstown High School football teams have youth league feeder systems. Boonsboro has a youth league feeder system as well. I don't know too much about the other high schools. I think the fact that Frederick County is so good at football and produced so many state champions and playoff teams is the primary contributor to Washington County high school football mediocrity.
South Hagerstown lost to Urbana, Catoctin, Middletown, and Walkersville (as well as Smithsburg and North High). That out of county schedule is BRUTAL!! North High basically lost the same slate of games (although they dodged Catoctin but substituted TJ for Urbana). Boonsboro lost to South Carroll, Middletown, Catoctin, and Brunswick (not to mention North, South, and Smithsburg)--OUCH!!! Half of your schedule being really good playoff teams isn't a recipe for success. WashCo's best hope was the very scrappy Smithsburg but during the regular season they were manhandled by all of the out of county playoff powers then of course was dismantled by the perennial powerhouse Fort Hill in the first round of the playoffs. Washington County high schools don't dodge anybody on the schedule but the lack of cupcakes generally doesn't lead to many seasons with winning records!
You are right about that being a brutal schedule for the Hagerstown schools. It is hard to build a winning program without getting the momentum of winning seasons.
I don't want to send this thread too far afield, but you may find this interesting Steelers10, Fort Hill is playing 4 teams from the PA next year, three from Pittsburgh. This is a first. They dropped Martinsburg and several other WV teams that were their former CVAL league rivals. They also seem to only be playing cupcakes from downstate. So, being a SW PA guy, does Fort Hill have a chance against those teams?
You are right about that being a brutal schedule for the Hagerstown schools. It is hard to build a winning program without getting the momentum of winning seasons.
I don't want to send this thread too far afield, but you may find this interesting Steelers10, Fort Hill is playing 4 teams from the PA next year, three from Pittsburgh. This is a first. They dropped Martinsburg and several other WV teams that were their former CVAL league rivals. They also seem to only be playing cupcakes from downstate. So, being a SW PA guy, does Fort Hill have a chance against those teams?
I think so (but remember, I'm a Maryland guy too). As you have indicated before, due to population loss Allegany County hasn't really seen any new high schools built except for Mountain Ridge over the past 70 or 80 years! It seems as if they have a pretty good football tradition in the county that matches what I know of Western PA's storied tradition. Allegany County has produced a few Division I prospects by itself for such a small county (BTW: Is that Dylan D'Atri kid that had the skull injury related to the family that owns all of the Italian restaurants?--sad, he was definitely on track for a FBS scholarship). Mountain Ridge has a kid who has committed to the Mountaineers. West Virginia as an entire state rarely produces many Division I prospects.
So, shifting the WV schools off of the schedule in favor of PA schools will only increase Fort Hill's cache. It is not as if Fort Hill needs it for playoff seeding but maybe we'll start to see a MD school besides DeMatha or Good Counsel appear in national rankings. It might also give exposure to other schools and college prospects out west; sometimes it seems as if the University of Maryland has forgotten about the kids out here! But it will be a tough road for Fort Hill. My uncle-in-law coached a highly regarded prospect in Virginia who went to Penn State and is just getting buried on their depth chart, most recently by a redshirt frosh from McKees Rocks. Pittsburgh has many of the same demographics as Western Maryland but it seems as if morale and tradition are waning in city schools.
However, for Washington County it seems to be advantageous to keep the WV schools on the schedule because they regularly provide early season wins (no offense WV!). Judging by the drubbing doled out to Smithsburg by Fort Hill in the 1A playoffs last year that's going to be one classification not represented by WashCo. Better luck in 2A!
However, for Washington County it seems to be advantageous to keep the WV schools on the schedule because they regularly provide early season wins (no offense WV!).
So the problem with the WV schools is that they don't score many points?
So the problem with the WV schools is that they don't score many points?
No, I don't want anyone from West Virginia being offended that their high school football teams provide easy wins. They are just kids after all so I don't want to cast any aspersions that these young amateur athletes are somehow losers. The state of West Virginia has a lot of geographic and demographic factors that disallow their high school football teams from being competitive on the field with schools from Maryland. Heck, these same factors often times negatively impact performance in the classroom which is exceedingly more important!
No, I don't want anyone from West Virginia being offended that their high school football teams provide easy wins. They are just kids after all so I don't want to cast any aspersions that these young amateur athletes are somehow losers. The state of West Virginia has a lot of geographic and demographic factors that disallow their high school football teams from being competitive on the field with schools from Maryland. Heck, these same factors often times negatively impact performance in the classroom which is exceedingly more important!
I know. Just making a joke about no offense/no offense.
Yes, D'Atri is the son of the owner of the carryout/delivery restaurant in Cumberland proper. He is related in some way to the owners of the others too. He has a lot of courage and tried to play through the head injuries for the last two seasons, but finally his doctors had to make him stop. He just graduated from my alma mater and is a good kid, so he will be OK. Still it would have been fun to see him play on a bigger stage.
Our local prospects tend to go into WV, PA or even VA colleges. Just off the top of my head, I can think of 2 "locals" in the last ten years that were starters for WVU, one at VA Tech, and one at UVA. Towson snatched up a Fort Hill running back in the late 1990s, and the lower ranked prospects frequently end up at places like Shippensburg, St. Francis, and Fairmont St. (where Fort Hill grad Andre Pope made the All-American team!)
I guess we will see how Fort Hill matches up with the Pittsburgh teams. It is a bold move by the AD, but this year's team will have lots of speed at fullback and halfback and an experienced and tough interior O-line, both of are key to making explosive plays in the Wing-T offense. So I suspect they will compete well. Dunbar's speed at the skill positions (especially QB) is the long term problem for Fort Hill at the state level and this move is probably an attempt to expose the kids to more good, speedy teams before playoff time. They have come agonizingly close to beating them 2 of the last 3 years, but fell short at the very end, because they don't have the team speed to both spy the QB and cover downfield.
Martinsburg is a big WV school that plays tough football. The other schools in the Eastern Panhandle are normally the small fries on other team's schedules, although Mussleman and Hedgesville have their years.
I know. Just making a joke about no offense/no offense.
It was a good one too--I give it three cheeses!
Quote:
Originally Posted by westsideboy
Yes, D'Atri is the son of the owner of the carryout/delivery restaurant in Cumberland proper. He is related in some way to the owners of the others too. He has a lot of courage and tried to play through the head injuries for the last two seasons, but finally his doctors had to make him stop. He just graduated from my alma mater and is a good kid, so he will be OK. Still it would have been fun to see him play on a bigger stage.
Our local prospects tend to go into WV, PA or even VA colleges. Just off the top of my head, I can think of 2 "locals" in the last ten years that were starters for WVU, one at VA Tech, and one at UVA. Towson snatched up a Fort Hill running back in the late 1990s, and the lower ranked prospects frequently end up at places like Shippensburg, St. Francis, and Fairmont St. (where Fort Hill grad Andre Pope made the All-American team!)
I guess we will see how Fort Hill matches up with the Pittsburgh teams. It is a bold move by the AD, but this year's team will have lots of speed at fullback and halfback and an experienced and tough interior O-line, both of are key to making explosive plays in the Wing-T offense. So I suspect they will compete well. Dunbar's speed at the skill positions (especially QB) is the long term problem for Fort Hill at the state level and this move is probably an attempt to expose the kids to more good, speedy teams before playoff time. They have come agonizingly close to beating them 2 of the last 3 years, but fell short at the very end, because they don't have the team speed to both spy the QB and cover downfield.
Martinsburg is a big WV school that plays tough football. The other schools in the Eastern Panhandle are normally the small fries on other team's schedules, although Mussleman and Hedgesville have their years.
Not only a bold move by the Fort Hill AD, but saving a few dollars on gas as Pittsburgh schools are somewhat closer to Cumberland than the high schools in Maryland's high population cluster downstate along the I-95 corridor. The extra 20-30 miles to travel in Maryland may seem negligible to some but that is generally the maximum extent WashCo schools have to travel to play the Frederick schools and vice-versa. Save the trip to Baltimore for the state championship!
I don't know a whole lot about Pittsburgh high school football, but of the city schools I have heard of, Perry blew through their city schedule before getting stopped by State College in the playoffs. I can only suspect they are fast because they don't seem overly big. But that Clay kid from Fort Hill apparently has excellent speed and decent size for a high school RB. It looks like the two schools match up quite favorably so I will be interested to see how that contest turns out. I wonder if mid-September is too early to drive out to Cumberland to see any fall colors (and catch a competitive football game<<ulterior motive alert>>)?
Without any overly large population centers, it seems as if the pendulum of WV football power has shifted to the Eastern Panhandle. Berkeley & Jefferson Counties (as well as Morgantown) are the only places in West Virginia experiencing any appreciable population growth. It may take a little while for the tradition to set in but I suspect in the future playing against those Panhandle high schools won't be the cakewalk for Maryland prep football that it is right now.
Not only a bold move by the Fort Hill AD, but saving a few dollars on gas as Pittsburgh schools are somewhat closer to Cumberland than the high schools in Maryland's high population cluster downstate along the I-95 corridor. The extra 20-30 miles to travel in Maryland may seem negligible to some but that is generally the maximum extent WashCo schools have to travel to play the Frederick schools and vice-versa. Save the trip to Baltimore for the state championship!
I don't know a whole lot about Pittsburgh high school football, but of the city schools I have heard of, Perry blew through their city schedule before getting stopped by State College in the playoffs. I can only suspect they are fast because they don't seem overly big. But that Clay kid from Fort Hill apparently has excellent speed and decent size for a high school RB. It looks like the two schools match up quite favorably so I will be interested to see how that contest turns out. I wonder if mid-September is too early to drive out to Cumberland to see any fall colors (and catch a competitive football game<<ulterior motive alert>>)?
Without any overly large population centers, it seems as if the pendulum of WV football power has shifted to the Eastern Panhandle. Berkeley & Jefferson Counties (as well as Morgantown) are the only places in West Virginia experiencing any appreciable population growth. It may take a little while for the tradition to set in but I suspect in the future playing against those Panhandle high schools won't be the cakewalk for Maryland prep football that it is right now.
Too early for fall colors in Sept., but still a great time to catch a high school football game up here. There are actually two Clays, identical twins at that. One started at halfback all season, the other was the SE until the last few games of the year when he was moved to fullback, or was it the other way around with one starting at fullback all year and the other moving to halfback later Hard to tell with twins.
Back to Washington County, it will be interesting to see if the development around South Mountain will eventually lead to new high school being built, or just an expansion of the two existing ones.
Last edited by westsideboy; 05-26-2011 at 03:42 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
). As you have indicated before, due to population loss Allegany County hasn't really seen any new high schools built except for Mountain Ridge over the past 70 or 80 years! It seems as if they have a pretty good football tradition in the county that matches what I know of Western PA's storied tradition. Allegany County has produced a few Division I prospects by itself for such a small county (BTW: Is that Dylan D'Atri kid that had the skull injury related to the family that owns all of the Italian restaurants?--sad, he was definitely on track for a FBS scholarship). Mountain Ridge has a kid who has committed to the Mountaineers. West Virginia as an entire state rarely produces many Division I prospects. 
