Hopefully NewCath has started to find its offensive identity after some early season struggles. Beechwood seems to have a firm grasp on who they are offensively and defensively. They just seemed to be overmatched by Alter and CovCath. That being said, NewCath scored on CovCath, and didn't do horribly bad defensively outside of a couple big plays. They were destroyed on special teams. I think that this game is going to be very close. Like every game between these two, it's going to come down to miscues and punt coverage. How many times has Beechwood returned a punt for a TD or NewCath fumbled at the most inopportune times? I go with NewCath 21-17.

 

That is a fair assessment although I don't like to use the CovCath game as an indicator because CovCath is just able to do things (lately) to these two Class A achools that they cannot do to each other. For example, neither ran the ball very well on CovCath but that has more to do with CovCath's dominance and I don't think tells me a whole lot about how they will do running against each other. Plus CovCath returned kicks on both but again that's because CovCath has superior return teams.

 

But you are correct in that this game often comes down to a couple of bad mistakes that turn the game like when NCC gave away 9 points in the span of about 20 seconds by fielding a punt at the 1, fumbling trying to get out of the endzone for a Beechwood TD, and then snapping the ball over the QBs head on the next play for a safety.

both teams seem to be on a down year and beechwood seems to be slightly better so ill take beechwood over ncc 28-21

How much worse than 45-7 would it have had to have been in order to be impressed?

 

I have played against Beechwood, and I have watched Beechwood play for many years now against Ludlow. And maybe they played a bad game or something but they did not impress me at all. Yeah the final score ended up the same as any other year, but they just did not look like the normal Beechwood team that I am use to seeing. They just dont seem to be as much of a dominating teams as they use to be IMO...

 

So I will stick with my earlier prediction

 

NCC 26

Beechwood 20

This will be a very physical game and a very much run oriented game plan. Some trick plays to establish field position and keeping each other honest, I see NCC winning this one.

 

NCC - 28

Beechwood - 21

Tough one, I watched them both play CCH and while both had trouble moving the ball NewCath's D Line seemed to dominant CCH's O line even in defeat. I think NewCath is much more physical but Beechwood seems to have more speed (Bankamper, Kyotious(however you spell that) so ........

Beechwood 21

NewCath 17

Even though Beechwood is the favorite here I'm going to go with NewCath winning by 3 points

NC by 7.

Even though Beechwood is the favorite here I'm going to go with NewCath winning by 3 points

 

Hard to say who is really the favorite as both teams have looked good and bad at times.

 

Beechwood defense was really good against Alter, Ludlow, and Dixie and not so good against CovCath.

NCC defense has shut out Newport, Dayton, gave up only 7 to Belfry but got torched by CovCath in the first half and then gave up 0 in the second half. Held Ryle to 6 in the first half, gave up 26 in the second.

 

NCC has had some offense but can't score and Beechwood had 0 against Alter and CovCath but hung 38 on Dixie and 45 on Ludlow.

WHERE and WHAT TIME will this game be played on Saturday?

Here's a link to the 7:00PM Webcast

http://rodeo.cincinnati.com/preps/nkyaudio.aspx#