Leading off today: Dev Holmes scored touchdowns on Troy's first two touches of the game,
sparking the Flying Horses to a 33-21 victory over Shaker for the Section 2 Class AA football championship Thursday.
Holmes returned the opening kickoff 88 yards to start the scoring. On Troy's first offensive play, a flea- flicker throw from Joey Ward to Holmes resulted in a 69-yard score to get Troy halfway to a 27-0 lead.
Ward ran for 182 yards and two touchdowns.
Shaker closed to within 27-21 on Kwasi Addo's 6-yard TD run on the first play of the fourth quarter, but Troy then went to Ward and the running game to drain precious time from the clock.
"Joey Ward is a heck of a running back," Shaker head coach Greg Sheeler told The Record. "When he gets going downhill, it's tough to stop. That's what we saw."
Hey, I know you: Friday's Section 2 Class C football final reunites Greenwich assistant Kevin Collins with Mechanicville, where he coached for 17 years before taking a new teaching position last August.
"We got an excellent line coach, we got a man with 17 years' experience in football, but even better than that we got an excellent teacher, a great mentor to these kids and they respond to that type of thing," Greenwich head coach Brandon Linnett said. "I'm not a teacher, so I'm not in the school, so the more quality people that I can have on my staff in the school, I can't tell you how important it is."
Football schedule: Week 10 of the season (i.e., the sectional finals for most of the state) gives us quite a few confrontations between ranked teams.
In addition, here's the rundown of all the playoff scores thus far and the remaining schedule.
Brentwood earns title: Brentwood's boys defeated Newfield 4-2 for the Section 11 Class AA championship. Wilber Gomez scored once and assisted on a goal by his brother Randy that gave the Indians a 3-1 lead in the 54th minute.
Newfield played the final 23 minutes a man down following an ejection.
Hall of Fame coach dies: Jack Ringel, who coached Grady High of the PSAL to 450 boys basketball wins, three New York City titles and a Federation championship, died in an automobile accident Sunday morning.
Ringel is a member of the New York Basketball Hall of Fame.
On Monday, Ringel's son P.J. played for Marlboro (N.J.) in the first round of the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group 4 boys soccer tournament, scoring two goals -- including the golden goal in overtime -- in a 3-2 win over Colts Neck. He has 20 goals this season.
Colts Neck had offered to postpone the game to later in the week, but the Ringel family decided the contest should be played as scheduled.
"P.J. has done nothing but impress me throughout his career," Marlboro coach Dave Santos said. "I already held him in extremely high regard before Sunday morning. His maturity, his team-first attitude, his work rate, his character, he's just been an absolute joy to coach for the last three years. What's happened over the last 48 hours has only strengthened that feeling for him."
