Edison edges West, T-CAL gets interesting

Going in to Friday’s football game between Edison High School (4-3, 2-0 TCAL) and West High School (1-6, 0-2 TCAL) it was difficult to tell just how good, or bad either team was.

After Edison’s 22-21 victory, there are still plenty of questions. The big story from the game was West’s 35-yard field goal attempt with 1 second remaining. The ball appeared to hit the crossbar and skip through. However, in the video I shot of the game, you can clearly see that it passed over the bar and inside the upright. The official is standing directly below the ball and because it was a low kick he ducks out of the way. Both teams ran out of the field to celebrate and it there was mass confusion from the players, coaches and officials before the final work came down as a miss.

It was a bad break and has serious playoff implications for West as they fall to 1-6 and are essentially out of the playoffs.

After Edison’s go-ahead touchdown and 2-point conversion with 1:37 left in the game, the final drive was confusing. Even before the field goal, there was a play that was short of the first down and West was out of timeouts, but the clock stopped for several seconds. West was in a hurry-up offense and snapped the ball as soon as they could get lined up, but it isn’t clear if those few seconds would have meant West didn’t have time to attempt the final field goal.

Unfortunately, whatever was supposed to happen, the West players are stuck feeling like they got jobbed.

What is clear is that West is much better than their record. They’ve played St. Mary’s (7-0), Tracy (7-0), Granite Bay (5-2, with close losses to undefeated Rocklin and Del Oro), San Ramon Valley (5-2, lost to De La Salle and California) and California (4-3 with losses to undefeated Del Oro and one-loss Amador Valley). They have played one of the toughest non-conference schedules of any team in Northern California.

Edison won this game and they played very well in the second half. Regardless of the final play, Edison is a solid team and they could easily be 5-2 instead of 4-3 with their close loss to Franklin earlier this season.

St. Mary’s is clearly the best team in the Tri-City Athletic League, but there is very little separating Tokay, West, Edison and Stagg. I wouldn’t be surprised if those four teams each end up with at least two losses.