Ashley Ridge at Summerville POLL

[GoBigGreen]

Ashley Ridge comes into this game with a perfect 8-0 record(2-0 in region play) while Summerville is 3-6 overall(1-1 in Region Play). Ashley Ridge is looking to get to 9-0 to set up the battle of undefeated teams and the Region VIII title next week at Fort D. Summerville on the other hand is looking to build on their first win in region play last week against Colleton County. With a win against AR and Bluffton in the final week, Summerville would lock up 2nd place in Region VIII with an overall 5-6 record(3-1 in region play). In short, a lot is on the line this week during Summerville's homecoming game against Ashley Ridge this Friday. What are your thoughts on this matchup?

[Rebel-Fan-74]

Are Ashley Ridge and Goose Creek thinking of a make up game in the extra week?

For this game, Summerville is an underdog for maybe the first time against Ashley Ridge and probably deservedly so...

I'm going to go with the 8-0 record as the win last week against Colleton wasn't enough to make me a believer just yet.

[cavaliereagle]

Gotta go with AR. I sure wish Summerville could pull it out though.

[Newcatntown]

GBG....I'm gonna tell you something that you aint gonna believe ...SUMMERVILLE WINS THIS GAME!!!! I never did give a summery of AR after Bluffton's 4th qtr meltdown.
AR beat CC on a broken play to beat them barely....Bluffton beat them plain and simple before the meltdown of turnovers in the 4th qtr.
Now...before the AR guys call BS on me.. ...AR is a very solid team with some great athletes and a solid coaching staff. AR's O-line is average at best and Bluffton ran really well on their D-line. If AR had a better O-line...their QB would pick ANY teams DB'S apart.
So....Summerville wins this one in my opinion by 14.

[GoBigGreen]

I too am picking us to win after several weeks of not doing so. I did pick Summerville to beat CC last week as we were getting our qb back after missing several weeks due to an injury. We are finally back home and hope to catch AR looking ahead for the Region VIII championship next week against FD.

[GoBigGreen]

Are Ashley Ridge and Goose Creek thinking of a make up game in the extra week?

I do not think the game is going to be made up as it is a non region game and not needed for playoff consideration. This game will just be a mark off game.

[dfactor26]

Ashley Ridge is 8-0 but so many of those games have been very close, 5 of their 8 wins have been by less than 7 points - and the teams they played in those 5 one-score games are not exactly elite competition (James Island, Wando, West Ashley, Cane Bay, Colleton County)...and as Newcat said Bluffton had them on the ropes until the 4th quarter.


In fact...while looking up some information for this response I found some interesting things about Ashley Ridge football so far this season. Again Ashley Ridge is 8-0, but looking deeper I found that in 7 of their 8 wins Ashley Ridge trailed at some point during the game. The only wire-to-wire victory they had was against 2A Woodland (2-7) who they beat easily. Looking even deeper I also found that Ashley Ridge trailed in the 4th quarter in 5 of their 8 games this season! So outside of 2A Woodland Ashley Ridge has trailed in every game this year and trailed in the 4th quarter in 5 of them. On one hand you can be an optimist and look at that and say they are a battle tested and scrappy team that knows how to win close games, or you can be a little more pessimistic and say they are lucky to be 8-0 and could easily be 3-5 if not for a few 4th quarter heroics.


Of course none of this really means anything, but I'm a numbers guy so I really found all this interesting. Does it mean Summerville will definitely win? I wouldn't go that far, but I really don't think Summerville is as big of an underdog as the records of both teams indicate. Personally I don't think Ashley Ridge is probably as good as their 8-0 record is, and don't think Summerville is as bad as their 3-6 record is. Having said that Ashley Ridge and Summerville have played 6 mutual opponents, and Summerville is only 1-5 against those teams while Ashley Ridge is 6-0, so clearly Ashley Ridge is the favorite to win the game and they have earned that by going out and winning every game so far this season while Summerville has definitely not... but If I was a Summerville fan (and I'm definitely not) I'd be encouraged for the most part by these numbers. If James Island, West Ashley, Cane Bay, Colleton County and Bluffton all managed to have leads in the 4th quarter against Ashley Ridge I don't see why Summerville wouldn't have an opportunity to do the same. Fort Dorchester is off this Friday so I will likely be at this game because I think it's gonna be a really good one.


My honest prediction...

Summerville - 31
Ashley Ridge - 27

[GoBigGreen]

Shocked to hear that you are not a Summerville fan but think your prediction is very close to what we will see. Last week we had a lot of AR players at our game at CC as AR was off. I expect to see some FD players and fans at our game this week getting a peak at AR.

[swampfox1]

GBG....I'm gonna tell you something that you aint gonna believe ...SUMMERVILLE WINS THIS GAME!!!! I never did give a summery of AR after Bluffton's 4th qtr meltdown.
AR beat CC on a broken play to beat them barely....Bluffton beat them plain and simple before the meltdown of turnovers in the 4th qtr.
Now...before the AR guys call BS on me.. ...AR is a very solid team with some great athletes and a solid coaching staff. AR's O-line is average at best and Bluffton ran really well on their D-line. If AR had a better O-line...their QB would pick ANY teams DB'S apart.
So....Summerville wins this one in my opinion by 14.

Yes AR beat CC on a QB scramble on 1 day of practice and from what I hear CC had practice 4 or 5 times (Don't know if true or not just a rumor). Also as for winning on the broken play AR also had a TD called back, two snaps over a tall QB head that got no points and several dropped passes that should have been scores. Defense had two bad plays against CC and gave up 14 points. As for the Bluffton game, I will agree the line looked very bad that game...Looked like a team that thought they were going to show up and just win by showing up. Don't know the rushing stats for Bluffton but I don't recall Bluffton running all over the AR Defense but won't disagree that at half it was 21-16 Bluffton. So in the second half AR defense gave up 7 points and the offense scored 17 to make it a 33-28 game then the wheels came off for Bluffton.
I will agree that if you would have told me at the start of the year having to replace 4 of 5 OL, 3 WR, 1 RB that AR would be talking an undefeated season I would have laughed and called you crazy. But proof shows the difference as CC and Bluffton can see the difference between a 4-5 team and an undefeated team and its just a few points...I do love how CC and Bluffton say we had them beat but remember before the meltdown AR was beating Bluffton 33-28, then came the PR for a TD, 99 YD INT for a TD and like you said for good measure a TD at the end. But I will also agree that AR is playing with fire, but again Thanks for the Meltdown and the broken play, Rather pretty or ugly in the end it still goes down as a WIN and the losers always say well we beat them BUT we had a BREAKDOWN or Melt Down...Well good teams don't MELT DOWN..as for this weeks game AR could lose Summerville has only lost to AR 1 time in the history of the rivalry and when a rivalry game the records can be tossed out. But I do like the excuses and I do agree newcat AR OL is bad, defense does give up some plays but as you see first hand in one half the defense was slow to shut you down and in the other you had a meltdown. This week we may have a meltdown but at the end of the day I would have never guessed a team that replaced 8-11 offensive players and 5-11 defensive players would have been undefeated this late in the year I would have said no way. AR was picked last or next to last in the region the last two years and yet they finished in a 3 way tie last year and this year they are as of right now no worse then third. So maybe summerville wins and ft wins. Guess what at the beginning of the year wasn't that the way was supposed to be yet now everyone is making excuses to why AR is still in the hunt.

[swampfox1]

Ashley Ridge is 8-0 but so many of those games have been very close, 5 of their 8 wins have been by less than 7 points - and the teams they played in those 5 one-score games are not exactly elite competition (James Island, Wando, West Ashley, Cane Bay, Colleton County)...and as Newcat said Bluffton had them on the ropes until the 4th quarter.


In fact...while looking up some information for this response I found some interesting things about Ashley Ridge football so far this season. Again Ashley Ridge is 8-0, but looking deeper I found that in 7 of their 8 wins Ashley Ridge trailed at some point during the game. The only wire-to-wire victory they had was against 2A Woodland (2-7) who they beat easily. Looking even deeper I also found that Ashley Ridge trailed in the 4th quarter in 5 of their 8 games this season! So outside of 2A Woodland Ashley Ridge has trailed in every game this year and trailed in the 4th quarter in 5 of them. On one hand you can be an optimist and look at that and say they are a battle tested and scrappy team that knows how to win close games, or you can be a little more pessimistic and say they are lucky to be 8-0 and could easily be 3-5 if not for a few 4th quarter heroics.


Of course none of this really means anything, but I'm a numbers guy so I really found all this interesting. Does it mean Summerville will definitely win? I wouldn't go that far, but I really don't think Summerville is as big of an underdog as the records of both teams indicate. Personally I don't think Ashley Ridge is probably as good as their 8-0 record is, and don't think Summerville is as bad as their 3-6 record is. Having said that Ashley Ridge and Summerville have played 6 mutual opponents, and Summerville is only 1-5 against those teams while Ashley Ridge is 6-0, so clearly Ashley Ridge is the favorite to win the game and they have earned that by going out and winning every game so far this season while Summerville has definitely not... but If I was a Summerville fan (and I'm definitely not) I'd be encouraged for the most part by these numbers. If James Island, West Ashley, Cane Bay, Colleton County and Bluffton all managed to have leads in the 4th quarter against Ashley Ridge I don't see why Summerville wouldn't have an opportunity to do the same. Fort Dorchester is off this Friday so I will likely be at this game because I think it's gonna be a really good one.


My honest prediction...

Summerville - 31
Ashley Ridge - 27

Good points and correct AR has trailed at some point in most games...Battle tested maybe, young and inexperienced to start Yes playing with a patchwork OL, yes again. Replaced 8 of 11 offensive players and 5 of 11 defensive players and sitting right now 8-0. Take it everyday of the week, You are correct Summerville could win at the start of the year it was Ft. D and Summerville being talked about and Maybe AR could slip in due to having an experience QB and a decent but not great Defense. Most thought that CC and Bluffton would win against AR when the year started but like every year since being AAAA AR has made the playoffs and found a way to win enough region games to make it to the playoffs. No AR has not really made a deep run in 7 plus years since starting in 2008 AR made it to the second round in 2010 and semi final in 2011 so until AR can get over the hump they will always be the underdog or a team that could "possibly" upset a team predicted to win it all.
So honestly AR could lose, On paper AR should have lost several games this year, on paper Ft. should blow AR out of the water...But as they say the game isn't played on paper.
Just my opinion AR HC should be the coach of the year, He took a team that had basically one good offensive player returning (Who doesn't get respected either) and took them to 8 wins. Ft. and Summerville are supposed to just reload after losing people and Ft. Did just that, so AR might be the luckiest 8 win team in the state. But I will say this, if it were Summerville at 8-0 right now and barely winning everyone would be respecting the record and saying it would be an upset if the shoe was on the other foot and AR was 3-6. No matter how the rest of the season ends AR has exceeded expectations in my opinion.