Bishop Sullivan Catholic (Va.) at Springfield Central (Mass.)

[Adam Kurkjian]

Thanks to our man GardenStateBaller and Prep Gridiron Logistics, Massachusetts will be hosting the best out-of-state team to come to the Commonwealth since, off the top of my head, St. Peter's Prep came back in 2011 (def. BC High, 35-19).

Game will take place on Saturday, Sept. 9 at 1 p.m. According to GSB, Central is paying for the hotel and providing free passes to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Obviously, Bishop Sullivan will be huge favorites here, but Central's coaching staff is nothing if not ambitious and really puts an emphasis on challenging its kids.

A little background on Central:

- The highest division of Western Mass. is well behind what you see in Central and Eastern Mass., and Central lately has dominated the competition in WMass. Central has had difficulty beating the CMass or EMass teams in the playoffs, so the better competition it can get early in the season can only help down the line.

- Central returns I believe three OL, four of its five top WR, a backup RB and a few key defenders. Lost its QB, so there will be a battle between a rising senior and two sophomores for the job.

- Central, to the best of my knowledge, does not have any major D1 talent at the roster as of yet. They will have some decent speed at the skills but looks like will be outsized by Bishop Sullivan.

- No matter what happens in this game, it will be a good thing for Central (even if they get blown out). Will expose them to some high-level comp. If the media around here properly hypes the game, too, then there should be a pretty decent crowd (by Mass. standards).

- As far as where Central sits in the top 25 in Mass. next season, the Golden Eagles will be somewhere in it. If they can win D3, they will be top 5-10 for sure. Right now, though, teams like Duxbury, St. John's (Shrewsbury) and a few others are projected to be a little better.

- Here's a look at Central's top returning receiver, Myles Bradley.

Thanks again to GSB.

[TheRealCAJ]

cool......

[MA Fan]

That's a really tough matchup for any MA team.

This is probably Springfield Central's most famous sporting moment:

 

[Wosinc]

I truly hope Central does well, but objectively speaking, the level of competition in Western Mass has tailed off woefully and steadily over the last couple of decades.

It's even worse than Adam suggests.  It's to the point where I cringe when a Western Mass team plays a Central Mass team, much less ventures into Eastern Mass.

This is a region that once could hold its own with the rest of the state, and did well OOS, but those days are long gone.

The populations of the towns are growing about the same as the state as a whole, but the male enrollments in the traditional public schools are down.

I suspect the emergence of regional technical schools is drawing off a large proportion of boys who just want to learn a trade, and don't have their sights set on college.

I fear Central has bitten off too big a chunk, but I wish them well.

[Adam Kurkjian]

5 minutes ago, Wosinc said:

I fear Central has bitten off too big a chunk, but I wish them well.

For sure, even top EMass teams don't play squads of this caliber every year. Central sees the value in the matchup regardless of the outcome, though. And you are right about the current state of WMass football.