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Chris Terrence's Weekly Blog

FINALS Week Is Upon Us

The long and winding road of the 2005 central section high school football season leads to Fresno, Tulare, Oakhurst, Sanger*, and Visalia*. It’s been a season that will to go down as one of the best ever in our area as there has been some awesome displays of talent and teamwork, huge victories, surprising defeats and great comebacks. As we head into this championship week in the CIF central section playoffs, only 2 of the five number one seeds are still standing.

In the one that is already history, the Visalia game, the Division V title game took place on Friday night, and Central Valley Christian shutout Tranquility 31-0 giving the Cavaliers their third straight Central Section Division V championship. Tranquility had knocked off the number one seed, Fowler, 27 -9, then beat Caruthers to get a title shot at CVC who had defeated Liberty-Madera Ranchos and Coast Cambria on their way to the championship game. CVC coach Mark Gambini led the Cavaliers to an 11-2 record for the season.

So it’s one down and four to go and there are some excellent match-ups this year. In Division I, Bullard High, under the direction of former Knight Player and now coach, Don Arax, is looking for it’s first Valley Championship title, EVER! That is a pretty amazing stat considering all the great players that have come through the Knight ranks through the years.

Kevin Sweeney, Jon Anabo, Curtis Williams, Gordie Webster, Nick Papagni, and Dan Robinson just to name a few, but the Valley title has been as absent as a hot day on Christmas at the North Pole. Bullard lost a couple of games early in the season to Clovis East and Clovis West, but have been steadily getting stronger as the season wore on. The Knights had another core of stars in the likes of the Big Fella, Anthony McCoy, Alex Huerta, Paul Jamie, and Kenny Hedrington, but they also have gotten great play from their O and D lines this year, not to mention an excellent linebacking core and defenders like Jay Snelling, Philip Thomas, Terrence Gilbert, Charley Robbins, Chris Nelson, and Wil Staley (again, just to name a few), that have put the Knights in the driver’s seat in search of that so far elusive title.

Everything seemed to come together for Bullard in the semifinal game vs Madera, at McLane Stadium after the Coyotes scored 25 points in and amazing 1st quarter of action. Action? Yeah action. More action then Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving. Outstanding quarterback Nick Bates, led the Coyotes in the barrage against the Knights with two 67 yard touchdowns, one on a pass to Chris Jackson and the other on a run where just about all 11 Knights on the field had a shot at him before Bates broke loose for the touchdown. The Knights took those blows, and answered with a few of their own behind Alex Huerta and Anthony McCoy, who took a moment off from his pass catching job, to throw a 54 yard touchdown pass to Paul Jamie to bring the score to 25-14 Madera, after one quarter. The packed house at McLane was making lots of noise from both sides of the field. After that, it was all Bullard as the Knights showed why they are on course for a Valley championship, outscoring the Coyotes 50 to 14 in the last three quarters, setting up the final with the Bakersfield Drillers for all the marbles this week. The Drillers were busy down in Bakersfield in the semifinals as they beat Clovis High, the last remaining Clovis Unified team in the playoffs, 34-0. Two inches of rain fell on BHS stadium on the day of the game and everybody was slipping’ and sliding’ except, it seemed, for Terrel Young, who broke loose for three long touchdown runs of 75, 75, and 88 yards, on his way to an incredible 301 yards rushing. Apparently it turned out a good thing for Young and the Driller’s that he played the game on the very muddy field, wearing snow shoes. But seriously folks, the Drillers are also an excellent football team with an array of stars of their own besides Terrel Young. They had lost to Clovis halfway through the season by a score of 20 to 9 and then haven’t lost since. Like Bullard, the Drillers have come a long way with a new quarterback who has led them to this Valley title game. Philip Thomas stepped in for the injured starter, Tyler Kay, who was injured and out for the season back in October, and has done a great job. Should be a terrific game on Friday and watch the Bee for the times and channels for the TV coverage on Cocola Broadcasting station and Comcast. At press time, it had not been announced exactly where the game will be played, but we’ll be there to cover it.

Meanwhile Bob Mathias Stadium will be where you will find Tulare High and West Bakersfield squaring off for the Division II title game. I’m not sure, but I heard that Bob Barnett’s new book on football records in the Valley is being called “The Emmanuel Lewis and Barry Wilson Record Book. The Tulare dynamic duo has been busy all season making new entries in the record books. The Redskins come into the game undefeated and put up another 56 points on the scoreboard against Ridgeview’s 21 with Lewis handing out 247 yards to Wilson and Tulare’s other receivers. Meanwhile West got it’s place in the finals with a 54-7 thrashing of a good Monache team that was the #3 seed. So in Division II you got the number one seed playing the number two seed.

Division III has a match up that everyone thought they might see in the title game from the beginning of the season. Lemoore and Yosemite will be putting on the HITZ on Friday night in Oakhurst. It will be cold and the players will be warm and they will be getting after it. In the semifinals, Yosemite had to muster up some courage to come from behind and beat a surprising number three seed, Golden Valley team. The other semifinal in Division III was also a heart stopper as Lemoore, came up with 21 points in the 4th quarter to beat previously undefeated and the number 1 seed El Diamante, 28-14. David Aussberry, who has received a ton of national recognition this year, the latest being a spot on the Parade all-American team, came up with over 165 total yards including a 43 yard touchdown in that deciding fourth quarter. Both Lemoore and Yosemite are peaking at just the right time for the fireworks show at Badger Stadium in Oakhurst. Last year we covered the Badgers Valley championship win over Fresno High and it was great to see a huge crowd come out for the game. Oakhurst is a great football town. Division IV is also looking for a great game between Chowchilla and Immanuel. The Eagles of Reedley finished the regular season and playoffs so far - undefeated at 12 and 0, and the Redskins of Chowchilla finished with a 10-2 record, seeded number three behind Immaunel and Templeton. So why are some of the experts saying that Immanuel is the underdog here? Well I think it’s is going to be a great game. Immanuel has surprised a lot of people this year after a few not so hot years, but Bobby Hinds is a terrific quarterback and leader and Darren Zulim is one of the best wide receivers in the Central Section, where there are many talented receivers. This dynamic twosome hooked up for three TD’s and over 200 yards again to lead the Eagles exciting win over a tough Dos Palos team that was coming on very strong as this season unfolded. The Broncos are always tough in the playoffs and this game was no exception as they outscored the Eagles 20 to 0 in the second half. The Eagles were able to hold on in the 27-20 victory. So here’s another great game on tap for Finals Week. This one will be played at Tom Flores Stadium in Sanger.

So there you have it. It’s going to be an exciting week. Get out and support your favorite teams if you can and be sure and catch the Bullard/Bakersfield game on Cocola and Comcast stations. The game will be aired in Barkersfield and Porterville, as well as Fresno and the Central Valley....By the way, our players of the game in the Bullard/Madera game were Paul Jamie for Bullard, and Nick Bates for Madera.......Saw lots of football players in the crowd as well at McLane, Mike Servantes from Hoover, former QB Kevin Sweeney was in the crowd, Nick Papagni did his usual great job announcing, one of Bullard’s stars from last year’s team, Kevin Swan was there, as well as former Valley Champ Edison High coach Ray Reyes who was our guest on our half-time show.... Color commentator Fred Clark and I always get a kick out of trying to find out where Coach Reyes will coach next. He says he’s retired, but he is a great coach who loves the game so much, makes you wonder......Oh and by the way, you have ONE MORE WEEK TO ENTER OUR IPOD drawing! You can register at kjeotv.com....It’s a great IPOD and we’ll be giving it and other prizes away on the drawing at half-time of the D1 final game. Register as many times as you like...........Oh and props and all good wishes to the recently married Gary and Juliana Cocola. Our whole crew is happy for these two lovebirds and we wish them the best....also Fred Clark recently turned 39 years old, just like he did last year and a number of years before that. Fred is a great guy and is a terrific sportscaster who has a tremendous passion for the game of football, in particular Valley high school football and Denver Broncos football. The only flaw with Fred is his insistence of eating a bowl of chili beans before each TV game we do.

Have a great week. Hope your team wins.

Chris Terrence

2005 Football Season Archives: week 1 | week 2 | week 3 | week 4 | week 5 | week 6 |
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