A Miami showdown between No. 4 Washington and No. 9 Central highlights this week's list of top games across the country.
Photos by Jann Hendry/Gary McCullough, Graphic by Ryan Escobar
The new movie "When the Game Stands Tall" depicts a historic night in high school football when
Bellevue (Wash.) ended the national record 151-game winning streak of
De La Salle (Concord, Calif.).
That contest took place Sept. 4, 2004 in Seattle. The Wolverines scored on their first play from scrimmage and piled up 30 first-half points in a 39-20 victory over the California juggernaut.
This weekend, a different California team will try to flip the script on Bellevue by ending a record streak of its own — 54 straight wins, tops in Washington history.
Saturday's matchup between No. 17
Serra (Gardena) and No. 13 Bellevue — the featured act of the SoCal Honor Bowl in Oceanside, Calif. — leads off the MaxPreps Top 10 Games of the Week.
Overall, there are seven games on the agenda that include teams ranked in the latest MaxPreps Xcellent 25. There are three more games that are head-to-head tests including No. 4 Washington (Miami) battling No. 9 Central (Miami) and No. 24 Bingham’s (South Jordan, Utah) traveling to No. 8 Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas) on Friday night plus a Saturday matinee in Philadelphia between No. 18 Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, N.J.) and No. 15 St. Joseph’s Prep (Philadelphia).
Jamie DeMoney has nosed out to a small lead through two weeks of games in our season-long predictions contest. DeMoney correctly picked nine out of 10 winners last week, improving his overall record to 15-5. Kevin Askeland and Leland Gordon are tied for second, only one game off the pace. Stephen Spiewak's 12 correct winners holds down fourth place. Mitch Stephens soared to a nine-win week after only picking two games correctly on opening week. He's up one spot to fifth place, two games clear of Colin Ward-Henninger.
Here's a look at this week's Top 10 games along with predictions by MaxPreps staff writers and contributors Mitch Stephens, Stephen Spiewak, Kevin Askeland, Leland Gordon, Colin Ward-Henninger and Jamie DeMoney.
MaxPreps Top 10 Football Games of the Week
Central (Miami) vs. Washington (Miami)
Anthony Jones and Miami Central are looking for revenge after last year's loss to Booker T. Washington.
Photo by Stuart Browning
This
has become a yearly grudge match not only for supremacy in Miami-Dade
County but also the race for a national title. Both are Top 10 teams in
the latest MaxPreps Xcellent 25, each bolstered by a pair of difficult
road wins against top-notch out-of-state opponents. No. 4 Washington
began the year with a 57-21 blowout at then-No. 24 Oscar Smith
(Chesapeake, Va.) followed by a gutty 19-7 win against Tucker (Ga.) in
the Battle of the Borders in suburban Atlanta last Saturday. Senior
quarterback
Maurice Alexander (an FIU recruit) has thrown seven
touchdown passes in his first two games as Tornadoes quarterback. No. 9
Central ended then-No. 3 Hoover’s (Ala.) 30-game unbeaten streak on its
home field on opening weekend. The Rockets then held on for a narrow
21-20 win over Stephenson (Stone Mountain, Ga.) last week at the Battle
of the Borders. Senior running back
Cedric Miller has been Central’s
go-to player on offense, running for over 100 yards in both games.
Just the facts:
This series is tied 3-3 in games played since 2008. Washington has won
two of the last three including a 28-17 triumph over Central in a No.
1-versus-No. 2 classic last year that helped pave the way for the
Tornadoes’ first national championship. … Washington enters Friday’s
game with a 28-game winning streak, tops in Florida and one of the 15
longest streaks nationally. Central’s 14 straight wins — beginning after
the loss to Washington last September — is the state’s third-longest
streak.
Mitch Stephens: Central 22, Washington 21
Kevin Askeland: Central 35, Washington 28
Jamie DeMoney: Central 21, Washington 18
Stephen Spiewak: Washington 24, Central 21
Leland Gordon: Washington 22, Central 20
Colin Ward-Henninger: Washington 28, Central 27
