Prep Talk

High school fans, make sure you check out The Buffalo News over the next week.

After six teams survived sectional, regional and state championship playoffs to win state titles, we at The News are honoring each champion with a poster page. They are similar to the pages we produced last year for the four football state champions.

The commemorative posters include photos, rosters, complete schedules and results and a summary of each team's road to the finals.

The pages start Saturday. There will be a team championship poster page in each day following, except for Wednesday (Bills poster day).

Also definitely check out the online end of things, where we have produced some awesome audio slideshows detailing the teams' run to the championships.

Here's the schedule:

Saturday: City Honors girls volleyball.
Sunday: Eden girls volleyball.
Monday: Randolph football.
Tuesday: Southwestern football.
Thursday: Sweet Home football.
Friday: North Tonawanda football.

All of the pages will also available for purchase at our buffalonews.mycapture.com site (which can also be accessed via the link to the audio slideshows above).

For a special 25 percent discount online, enter the code: preptalk. (cool code huh?)

This championship week also includes the boys basketball preview on Tuesday and the All-Western New York football issue on Saturday, Dec. 12. The All-WNY football issue will include not only the team, but the final polls, coach of the year award and all of the all-league teams.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

Photographer Mark Mulville compiled some great photos, sounds of some of the voices that helped teams win state championships (and one of the voices that covered them) in some awesome audio slideshows about our state champions. There will be slideshows for all six state champions, corresponding with the six state championship pages we are producing.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

The finalists for the Trench Trophy, which honors the area's top lineman, are:

Troy Bigelow (Eden), Jasen Carlson (Southwestern), Dillon Gallagher (Williamsville South), Eric Harnden (Grand Island), Matt Hornung (Cheektowaga), Desmond Howard (St. Francis), Zach Marsh (Panama), Sean Mulhern (Riverside), Casey Shreve (North Tonawanda) and Kyle Shreve (North Tonawanda).

Tell us why you voted the way you did in the comments section below. Also, what do you think of the list? Who's not on the list that should be?

Remember to be RESPECTFUL of ALL of the players because they all had a great seasons.

I'll be keeping my thoughts to myself for now since we are deliberating the All-Western New York team.

The winner will be announced Wednesday, Dec. 9 at the Lancaster Elks Lodge No. 1478, which is the sponsor of the award. It is located at 33 Legion Parkway, Lancaster.

Reserve tickets are available by calling the Lancaster Elks at 685-1478 or by calling Carl Kuras at 698-1893. Doors open at 6 p.m. and dinner will follow at approximately 6:30 p.m. The cost per ticket is $20.

As always, another great job by the Trench Trophy committee to honor high school athletes. This award is a result of a lot of people doing a lot of hard work and they should be commended for adding another tradition to high school football in Western New York.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

The Trench Trophy Committee has announced its finalists for this year's award to the top lineman in Western New York.

Troy Bigelow, Eden
Jasen Carlson, Southwestern
Dillon Gallagher, Williamsville South
Eric Harnden, Grand Island
Matt Hornung, Cheektowaga
Desmond Howard, St. Francis
Zach Marsh, Panama
Sean Mulhern, Riverside
Casey Shreve, North Tonawanda
Kyle Shreve, North Tonawanda

Finalists will be honored at the annual Trench Trophy banquet on Dec. 9 at the Lancaster Elks Lodge, 33 Legion Parkway, Lancaster. Tickets are available via reservation by calling the Lancaster Elks at 685-1478 or by calling Carl Kuras at 698-1893. Doors open at 6 p.m. and dinner will follow at approximately 6:30 PM. The cost per ticket is $20.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

GLENS FALLS -- About 11 hours after I closed up the laptop after football games in Rochester, I opened it again here at the site of the state volleyball championships.

Eden faces Westchester County's Hendrick Hudson (Section I) in this morning's 10 a.m. Class B state final at the Glens Falls Civic Center, where I've spent many a March for the state basketball tournaments.

I'm going to go with a live blog (below) during the match. I probably won't be able to do that for the Class C (City Honors) and Class D (Cattaraugus/Little Valley) finals -- but I'll have live updates on a "regular" blog.

The Class B opening ceremonies occurred at about 9:20 a.m. for the 10 a.m. match. A nice touch with the Olympic entrance music; only drawback is that not too many fans were here to see it. 

Click on the box below to monitor the match.

Afterwards, feel free to comment below.

Check out match point for Eden:

Here's a shot of Eden during the postgame ceremony -- sorry I didn't get an ideal team picture but it was hard to move around the Civic Center.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

All three Section VI teams at the state volleyball final four have moved on to their respective final two.

Eden, City Honors and Cattaraugus/Little Valley will all play for state championships on Sunday after advancing in Saturday morning's pool play.

These results come thanks to the outstanding sports section of the Glens Falls Post Star (both in its sports section and volleyball blog).

Eden went unbeaten in six games of pool play, including a 25-15, 25-9 sweep of Hendrick Hudson. The matchup with Hudson was the last of pool play and was meaningless because both teams had already clinched a berth in the final. The teams will meet again at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Check out the Post Star's Class B live blog here 

City Honors also went unbeaten in six pool play games to move to Sunday's noon final against Section II (Albany area) champion Loudonville Christian.

Check out the Post Star's Class C live blog here.

Cattaraugus/Little Valley went 4-2 in pool play to earn a berth in Sunday's noon final against Thomas A. Edison of Section IV (Binghamton/Ithaca area). The teams split two games Saturday.

Check out the Post-Star's Class D live blog here.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

If you haven't seen them already, check out Pete Simon's front-page story on Grover Cleveland boys soccer and Mary Jo Monnin's wrapup of all of the non-football teams searching for state titles this weekend.

So who comes home with a plaque?

As always, let us know how and why you voted in the comments section below.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

Check the Prep Talk Live page for outstanding photography from The News' Mark Mulville.

What did you think of the game? Let us know in the comments section below.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

Here's a story on Eden football's turnaround that honestly I've been trying to do all season -- but one thing or another would always come up, or the timing wasn't just right.

Good thing for Eden (and the story) that the Raiders kept winning.

---Keith McShea

buffalonews.com/highschool     facebook.com/preptalkblog     twitter.com/bufnewspreptalk

This just in to the home office:

Saturday's Section VI football schedule -- all two games of it -- has been tweaked.

The Class C semifinal of Cassadaga Valley at Eden will be played on Hamburg's new turf field at 1 p.m. The game (originally scheduled for 1:30 p.m.) was moved because Eden's field is soaked.

The Class A semifinal of Iroquois at Sweet Home will be played at the traditional kickoff time of 2 p.m. (Section VI originally had the game at 1:30).

---Keith McShea