The Shippensburg Greyhounds will faceoff against the Northern York Polar Bears in the first round of the District 3 AAAA playoffs, which will be a rematch of an epic October 21 game where Northern York gave Shippensburg its first and only loss of the 2016 football season, in a 17 - 16 thriller that ended on an Alves field goal as time expired.
122.64 to 74.60 - Advantage Shippensburg
The above are the power rankings of Shippensburg 122.64 and Northern York 74.60 according to The Wizard's calculations. This gives a clear advantage to Shippensburg in terms of odds of winning this game.
3 to 1 - Advantage Shippensburg
The number of losses of each team. The Polar Bears suffered defeats to Middletown (10-0) #1 in AAA, Big Spring (6-4) & Waynesboro (7-3) #8 in AAAAA. The only slightly bad loss was to Big Spring, but even this game was a one score 21 - 28 loss.
On the otherhand, Shippensburg had only 1 loss, the aforementioned 1 point loss to Northern York. However, this was a road game, so if you factor in home field advantage, even this game could be viewed favorably for Shippensburg, as Friday Night's game will be held at Memorial Stadium in Shippensburg, so home field advantage will shift for this one.
Passing - Van Scyoc vs Robinson - Advantage Shippensburg
The passing game of Shippensbug has been tops in the Mid-Penn Colonial all season, Carter Van Scyoc has 1,700+ yards with 19 Tds to 8 Ints and has completed 1,150 of those yards and 12 Tds to Cody Gustafson. Curtis Robinson for Northern York, while more of a dual threat quarterback with 1,000 yards passing and 500 yards rushing has 9 Tds to 7 Ints and no go to receiver.
Rushing - Adam Houser vs Kyle Swartz - Advantage Shippensburg
Even with Shippensburg's prolific pass game Adam Houser has also been able to surpass 1,000 rushing, gain 6.7 on average per rush. Kyle Swartz meanwhile has only racked up 700 yards on 4.4 yards per rush, though he does hold the Td advantage having found pay dirt 10 times this year on the ground.
Defense - Greyhounds vs Polar Bears - Toss Up
Both teams are fairly stingy on defense having both pitched 2 shutouts and both are averaging giving up about 2 touchdowns per game.
Special Teams - VanHorne vs Alves - Advantage Northern York
While both teams sport adequate special teams play. Van Horne's 36/37 PATs and 2 FGs does not compare to Alves 7 field goals including the game winner over Shippensburg in the last matchup.
The Wizards Final Oddz - Shipensburg 67.6% - Northern York 32.4%
The winner will go on to play the winner of #3 Bishop McDevitt (6-4) vs #6 Milton Hershey (7-3).