By: Steve Watson, tvlsports.net contributor
It may be baseball season but let’s face it, football seems to dominate the sports news cycle year-round. High school sports is no exception. Not shockingly, some TVL football scheduling tidbits have trickled in since our last update in February.
Hopkinton managed to find a Week 2 opponent but it wasn’t one on our potential list of suitors. While we predicted that Hopkinton & fellow TVL school Dedham would link up on the gridiron, the two schools had other thoughts. Hopkinton signed on to play Hingham and will travel there Friday night, September 20th. No word yet on who Dedham will be playing that week but I’m sure we will find out as the off-season progresses.
In other scheduling news, Bellingham will be hosting neighboring Blackstone-Millville (BMR) to open up the 2019 season. The two teams will take advantage of this year’s Week 1/Week 1A option and play on Friday night, September 6th. That creates a bye week for both schools the following weekend (September 13-14) before resuming play in Week 2 on September 27-28.
This game is intriguing in not only the fact that it matches up two neighboring schools, but Bellingham will be the only TVL team to play a Central Mass school in 2019. Following the 2016 season, Central Mass instituted an “unwritten rule” that Central Mass teams had to prioritize scheduling fellow Central Mass teams in non-conference play. Bellingham vs BMR has been a rare exception to this, and rightfully so. As an added perk of sorts, BMR will be the only Central Mass team in action on the first weekend of the season, September 6-7.
BMR linking up with Bellingham is certainly a better option than what some other Central Mass schools opted to do to fill out their schedule. St John’s & Gardner opted to schedule bye weeks while Southbridge inked a deal with Martha’s Vineyard. In case you were wondering, that trip from Southbridge to Martha’s Vineyard is 124.6 miles spanning about 3 hours. Without stopping. By comparison, BMR to Bellingham is 7 miles, spanning 16 minutes. Safe to say BMR made a good move linking up with Bellingham. Short drive to play a team from the always competitive TVL.
Football is still 5+ months away, but the news cycle never stops. Bring on spring and let’s enjoy some fresh air!
