[16thregioner]

I knew something was suspect about this Lawrence team, even more so now that they lost their best player who their coach was touting as a player of the year candidate after their win over Russell. Losing to Greenup at home and barely beating Boyd just isn’t results that strong teams post. They will be in a real dogfight, no pun intended, next week against East Carter. In fact, there’s a remote chance that every team in their district loses in the first round, particularly with Belfry’s QB and coach leaving in ambulances tonight.

As for Raceland, they did what they were supposed to do this season and now have hopefully secured home field until their trip to Lexington. The Ram season comes down to this:

Beat Pikeville at Kroger Field and they’ve exceeded expectations and finally realized the decades old dream of many Raceland faithful. Hopefully the season ends with fire trucks escorting the team back to Ram Stadium to celebrate their trophy.

Lose at home to a team like Paintsville, Paris, Kentucky Country Day, or Hazard and the season goes down as a disaster in Ram lore along the lines of the home losses to LCA and Williamsburg years ago. If this happens with the stacked deck the Rams have this year, then the coach should be fired.

Make it to the finals and lose to Pikeville? That’s what the betting odds would favor at this point at least according to most on this board. If that’s the result, it will go down as a solid season for the Rams, but nothing that hasn’t been done before.

It’s interesting to see the 2 competing teams in orange on opposite sides of the river going for state titles this year. Which one gets there and achieves the goal? The results are meaningful to the future of both programs. Young eyes are watching. More importantly, the parents of young eyes are watching.