PAC-6 Fields Five Squads in Beast of the Hill Tourney: Focus on Falcons

Courtesy Don Callahan

If you are interested in PAC-6 football, then this past Friday, the 4th Annual Beast of the Hill 7-on-7 tourney at the University of North Carolina was the place to be in attendance.  Five of the seven current members of the PAC-6 conference were participating, including Hillside, Person, Northern Durham, Jordan and East Chapel Hill. In an earlier post we discussed Hillside and their eventual run to the championship [Hillside and Wakefield Highlight UNC Beast of the Hill Tourney].  I was fortunate enough to get out in the 100 degree heat and take in most of the day and got to see a lot of squads in action including all five of the PAC-6 teams.  As I mentioned in the earlier post I was most impressed with the Hornets, but if you are fan of the PAC-6 or football in the area, then the prospect of some exciting football should make all fans excited to get the 2011 season underway.

The tournament was organized with four pods of six teams each and allowed for five games during the round-robin to establish a first and second place finisher.  The top teams from each pod were then moved to the elimination round in a four team championship.  The four second place finishers were placed in a lower level championship round to establish a second tier (lower flight) champion.  Both Hillside and East Chapel Hill moved through their pods undefeated, while Jordan tallied a 3-2 mark and both Northern Durham and Person finished at 1-4.  East Chapel Hill fell in the semifinals to Wakefield, while Jordan lost out on the chance to make either elimination bracket with a final round robin overtime loss to Hermitage High School out of Richmond, VA.  Both Northern and Person ended up near the bottom of their respective pods, but there were positives from both squads.

Jordan brought two squads to the event, an 'A' team and 'B' team comprised primarily of underclassmen and jayvee players.  The 'A' team was in a pod with eventual pod champ Hermitage (Richmond, VA), Leesville Road,  Great Bridge (Chesapeake, VA) and Northern Nash.  West Mecklenburg was also in the pod, but pulled out and provided each of the remaining five teams with a forfeit win.  The Falcons ended up 2-2 against the teams in attendance and 3-2 with the forfeit win against West Meck.  They opened up the tourney with an early morning loss to eventual lower level champ Leesville Road, 18-0 and followed it up with a 20-14 win over Great Bridge.  Prior to lunch they picked up another win against Northern Nash, 18-6, before falling in overtime to Hermitage in the final round robin game of the day.  The Falcons had a tough draw, with Leesville ending up with just one loss on the day to Hermitage in round-robin play and Hermitage going undefeated in round-robin play to eventually bow out in the semis of the championship tourney to an undefeated Hillside squad.

Courtesy Don Callahan

The Falcons looked athletic at essentially every position out there.  One might say that would be obvious, but that isn't the reality in high school ball.  There are squads out there that are forced for whatever reason to field a team with what you have and what you have doesn't necessarily have to be athletic and strong.  Phillip Williamson dominated the landscape both offensively and defensively for the Falcons, not necessarily because of plays being made, but more so because of his overall stature and presence.  Compared to the rest of the PAC-6 schools in attendance, only Hillside looked to have more athletes and if both teams had the opportunity to go head-to-head it's safe to say that it would be close on any of the 50-50 opportunities.  Quarterback Joey Mangili made some nice throws, both in the intermediate range as well as deep, while senior Jeff Clark was fluid in his route running and made some solid catches on the day.  Defensively the Falcons rarely find themselves out of position and this was the case during the time I was able to see them in action.  The reality is that if the Falcons had been in a different pod, there is a solid chance they would have made it to the lower level championship round, as it was, they almost made in out of their own pod with eventual lower level champ Leesville Road and fourth place overall finisher Hermitage.

My take home thought from the Falcons, especially knowing what they've lost in personnel from a year ago, was that the they looked a bit stronger than I had expected to see them.  That said, as with every other PAC-6 squad, we really won't know a ton until the scrimmage season hits in a few weeks.  As we've said on a number of occasions, the passing league events provide just a glimpse of the team we'll see come August 19th and in a physical conference like the PAC-6, offensive and defensive line play will be huge.

We'll look at the other PAC-6 schools that were in attendance at the Beast of the Hill event over the upcoming days.  Check back at BCF4S for additional coverage of area football - just for starters!