Just got back from watching St. Joe's and St. Francis on their first day. Wasn't able to see any 7-on-7 or 11-on-11 stuff at either camp, but did get to speak with Joe's quaterback Chad Kelly and St. Francis running back Akeel Lynch.
Lynch and Kelly are regarded as the top two prospects in the area. Over the summer Kelly comitted to play at Clemson and Lynch comitted to Boston College.
Highlights from the summer for Kelly included meeting numerous NFL and college level quaterbacks and being named one of the best QBs in the country at the Elite Eleven camp in Malibu, Calif.
But on Monday Kelly was all about getting his team back to the Monsignor Martin championship game.
"I'm ready to win a championship again, hopefully we can repeat," Kelly said. "St. Francis, they reloaded, Canisius, they reloaded too. It's going to be a great league again this year and hopefully we can get back to another championship. Hopefully we get new chemistry with all these new players and hopefully they are ready to go."
St. Joe's has lost 16 players from last year's squad said heach coach Dennis Gilbert.
As for Lynch, he said he is hoping to be able to play a full 12 games this year. Lynch was forced to sit on the bench for the season's final six weeks because of a ruptured tendon in a finger on his left hand.
One of those six games just happened to be a loss to St. Joe's in the championship game.
"I only played half the season last year. My first goal is to just make it through the season," Lynch said with a laugh. "Then just take it one game at a time. We're trying to go and win every game, that's our goal."
Lynch also said that even though he is comitted to Boston College he still plans on looking at other schools before signing his letter of intent.
St. Francis coach Jerry Smith was pretty optomistic about his teams chances. He said that he thinks he has 22 solid players that he can rely on. As always with high school football though, Smith wondered about his teams depth.
I have to go write a notebook up for tomorrow's paper now, but check back here later. If some stuff doesn't make it into the notebook I might put it up here.
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