Week Nine Extra Points

My Extra Points are various notes on players, angles and or story lines I find interesting from the week pertaining to high school football in Arizona. Here is what stood out to me from Week Nine.

Section Champs: With it being just the second to last week of the season, many schools locked in a section title on Friday night. Some of those schools consist of: Sunrise Mountain, Ironwood Ridge, Centennial, Desert Ridge and Chandler.  

Snowflake: Jose Garcia of AIA 365 tweeted out an incredible note on Friday night. For the first time since 1990, Snowflake has knocked off both Blue Ridge and as of this week, Show Low with their 41-21 win. It has been an outstanding year for the Lobos as they have been blowing out teams left and right. They have scored at least 38 points in their last six games and of those six, three were for 60 plus. Their only loss this season was to undefeated Seton Catholic which just so happens to be the Sentinels smallest margin of victory this season (9).  The rushing attack of seniors Trevor McCray and Drew Schneider have combined for 1,592 rush yards going into week nine and 19 rushing touchdowns to lead their high powered offense. In past seasons, if you told Lobo faithful that they would beat Show Low and Blue Ridge in the same season, they would say no matter what else transpired that it would be a success. But if you as this year’s players beating both teams just scratches the surface of what they hope to accomplish over the next month.

Show Low: Speaking of Show Low, from their standards, it has been a difficult season for the Cougars who after losing to Snowflake on Friday night are 4-5 on the season. But there is a great story brewing with this team that is very young at its core. We remember the former Show Low and now current ASU quarterback Rathen Ricedorff who took 3A football by storm. By the time he finished his career at the high school level, holds the state record (as of the start of the 2014 season for the 3A level) for passing yards and touchdowns in a game (512, 9), passing yards and touchdowns in a season (4,413, 55) and passing yards and touchdowns in a career (8,517, 112). 

Now Cougar head coach Randy Ricedorff has a second son leading his football team under center. Sophomore Rhett Ricedorff has been the starter for most of this season and in his first seven games, threw for 1,141 yards, 11 touchdowns and just two interceptions leading his team back to .500 after starting the year 0-3. He has developed a great connection with junior receiver Quinten Clark who is just a junior and is becoming quite the tandem. Knowing the two are so young, they will both be back next year and Clark becomes a great threat for Rhett to try and chase older brother Rathen’s records.

Apollo: A cool moment at Apollo High School on Friday night as one of the Hawks all-time greats was honored in front of the home crowd. Former Hawk and current New York Giant Prince Amukamara was in town as the school retired his number at halftime. 

Amukamara was not the only AZ Prep and current Giant in town taking in a game. Former Desert Vista star Devon Kennard took in the Thunder game against Corona as well.