Prep Talk

Those were some extra sound bites I had leftover from today's story on Sweet Home and Deshanaro Morris in today's paper.

Here's the info we came across in putting together our story:

The basics (which we'll repeat in each of these posts): The Section V football site has the lineup of the entire state football tournament. ... Here's our history of Section VI football in the state tournament, which includes last year's tremendous results as well as all previous years, from the regionals to the state finals. ... Section4football has great overall history of the state, including how every school has performed, year-by-year, in the states. ... Here's the Time Warner Cable SportsNet schedule.

Here are this week's state rankings, where Sweet Home is first and Burnt Hills is second. The state rankings are part of the gallons of info available at the outstanding Road To Syracuse site administered by John Moriello of the state sportswriters association.

Here's my story from Sweet Home's win in last year's final here's our live blog from the game.

Here's the Burnt Hills school home page -- technically it is called Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School.

Here is the Albany Times Union report of Burnt Hills' state semifinal victory, written by James Allen. 

Here's the view from the other end of the press box -- Kevin Witt writing for Middletown's Times Herald-Record and its varsity845.com Web site -- on Cornwall's loss to Burnt Hills

Albany Times Union columnist Mark McGuire wrote about Burnt Hills coach Matt Shell and how Shell has dealt with his son's battle with cancer.

We did interviews with Sweet Home players and coaches Wednesday at the Buffalo Bills' fieldhouse. The Bills have opened up their facility for high school teams in the state playoffs for the last few years, just a great move by them.

Pat McMahon: "Two years ago I was in here as a sophomore when I got pulled up to varsity. Then we were in here last year for the state run. And now, for basically my last practice as a senior, I finish up here."

Here's a quick quote from senior linebacker Steve Spencer:

---Keith McShea