First, some historical perspective.
Located 6 1/2 miles apart, Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa high schools were the natural gridiron rivalry that did not exist for 40 years.
Playing in different leagues and classes, the football teams met only twice between 1965 and 2005, and not at all for 25 seasons.
The rivalry was restored when Ballston Spa moved up to Class AA four years ago, but the stakes reach a whole new level Friday night.
Saratoga and Ballston Spa, both 8-1, clash for the Class AA championship of the Section II Football Tournament. The game kicks off at 7 p.m. at Colonie High School.
While Saratoga last played in the Class AA final in 2005, the Scotties are making their first appearance in a Section II final since 1978, when they were Class B runners-up.
With neighboring school districts and players who know each other, there is plenty to fuel the rivalry.
"I don't think we can make it any bigger than it is," Ballston Spa senior quarterback Mark Seager said.
"We'll have to play our best football; obviously they were the best team we played all year," Saratoga senior linebacker Eric Hayden
said.
"They don't need me to tell them how important it is," said Blue Streaks head coach Terry Jones, whose team has won eight in a row since a season-opening loss to La Salle. "The problem the first game was we got ourselves caught up in the emotion of the rivalry and we wore out after the first half. We need to focus on the task at hand."
The Blue Streaks defeated Ballston Spa 17-14 on Oct. 9, a divisional game in which Saratoga got off to a strong start and a 17-7 halftime lead, but the Scotties stepped up in the second half.
"We took ourselves out of that game more than they did," Scotties senior linebacker Matt Clark said.
"We didn't do a good job of tackling and we didn't take care of the details," Ballston Spa head coach John Bowen said. "Every time we did something positive, we jumped (offsides), so it's first-and-15, first-and-20. The playbook's real thin for those situations. We need to tighten things up."
Saratoga, coming off a dominating 32-0 semifinal shutout of Schenectady, is powered by its rugged defense and three-headed power-running game of Tony DeLoatch, Tyler Bates and Ford Plowman. DeLoatch leads the team with 851 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns, with Bates adding another 670 yards and eight TDs behind a big, strong line.
Junior quarterback Luke Fauler was hurt last week when he was thrown down on a scramble, but was cleared to play Friday.
"Their defense is real good; they shut us down in the first half last time," Clark said. "We put in some wrinkles on offense that we think will expose some of their weaknesses."
Seager is Ballston Spa's most feared offensive weapon, a dynamic option quarterback who has rushed for 809 yards and nine touchdowns despite missing two games with a sprained ankle. Five other backs have combined for more than 1,200 yards, while the Scotties' defense is fast and aggressive.
"They make you play disciplined football in all three phases - special teams, offense, defense," Hayden said. "They have a lot of speed on offense. Seager is the best-running veer quarterback there is. We'll be all right as long as we control the line of scrimmage."
Ballston is coming off a 42-9 semifinal victory over upstart Guilderland last week, but the Scotties' seniors made plans to play for a sectional title years ago, as eighth-graders on the modified.
"We were all together on the modified, same team, same players," Seager said. "This is a shot at redemption for us - we thought we did a lot of things last time that we can fix."
Posted in Sports, Football on Friday, November 6, 2009 1:10 am Updated: 1:11 am. | Tags: Pete Tobey, Class Aa, High School Football, Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa
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