week 9 in review

I DID IT!!! Not that any of you care about my results (nor for that matter is it as important as the games themselves in my mind), but I finally had my first perfect week in picking games. And ironically it was in one of the weeks I felt had several very tough matchups.
I said going into the New Britain-Southington game that I thought the Hurricanes would be much better than a lot of people thought. I was right. They had a very good chance to score late in the game to tie it, with Rafal Garcarz making back-to-back great passes that slipped through receivers' fingers. Alas, the Southington juggernaut is one game away from extending coach Mella's perfect regular-season record into 2008, an incredible achievement.
So Southington is in the playoffs and Berlin needs only a win against East Catholic to clinch it. New Britain will in all likelihood (barring a first win of the season for Harding) be on the outside looking in at the playoffs for a third straight season. Meanwhile, the bell tolled for Wethersfield after a loss to Weaver, so the Eagles will be playing for pride alone on Thanksgiving against Newington. The Indians may be the unlucky losers should they win that game to go to 9-1 and still miss the playoffs by a narrow margin. Again, Newington must root heavily for all of the teams it has beaten, including Bristol Central on Thanksgiving to upset the Eastern Lancers. Rocky Hill remains on life support and may send holiday presents to Plainville should the Devils knock off Northwest Catholic on Turkey Day.
See, I promised you it would all get much clearer this week.
As I expected (like most people) Greenwich took a pretty good beating from Florida power Naples. I did not get to see the webcast of the game, but I'm sure it was exciting to be there for such a rare occasion. We'll see how the Cardinals bounce back against fellow top-five opponent Staples.
My records now: 48-17, 6-3.