Title, revenge and bowl aspirations all on the line for St. Bonny, Hart

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One of the reasons it’s so hard to figure out who’s going to take the Northern Division final between top-seeded St. Bonaventure and second-seeded Hart is because, well, the teams haven’t played each other this season.

Until this season, both squads had met in nonleague play the last five years. Still, last year marked the first time the Indians and Seraphs actually met up in the playoffs and we all know that game didn’t turn out to be anything like the 34-0 shellacking St. Bonny put on Hart earlier in the year.

‘This is definitely going to be another tough one for us,’ Hart DE Derek Bickford said. ‘They’re a good team and they always play hard. We’ve got to stop [Darrell] Scott, that’s for sure, and just play strong all around.’

St. Bonaventure leads the head-to-head series, 4-2, since 2002, and you know the Seraphs are still grinding their teeth over Hart’s 27-14 quarterfinal triumph last season. In addition, you got to believe the senior-laden squad is thinking about the Division III state bowl game somewhere in the back of its collective mind.

So, we’re looking at a division final featuring two DI-bound running backs [the other being Hart’s Delano Howell] and a slew of other highly-skilled players tied together by a big chunk of revenge factor -- this is what playoff football is all about.

[Above is a photo I took of St. Bonny WR Blayne Lewis during the Seraphs’ 55-36 semifinal victory over Saugus.]

-- Austin Knoblauch