Mount Carmel is ranked No. 1...

...by both Chicago newspapers and MaxPreps. And I think that's a little odd; didn't Loyola beat them? (Yeah they did; I was there.) Shouldn't the Ramblers be No. 1? Lake Zurich, meanwhile, is ranked No. 4 in the Chicago papers and No. 7 by MaxPreps. And yet the Bears are a No. 1 seed and the Caravan No. 2.

Whatever. I'm picking Mt. Carmel (12-1) to beat Lake Zurich (12-1) on Saturday.

While I can't find any previous meeting between the two programs, I did watch the Bears beat Warren in Week Three, and I also saw the Caravan three times this year, against St. Patrick, Loyola and St. Rita. (I missed the first game in Week Five but caught the rematch in the second round of the playoffs.) And, as I said after that contest with the Mustangs, nobody's going to beat Mount Carmel in 7A this year -- nobody.

(Although it's fortuitous that Mount Carmel played in 8A when 7A was arguably stronger and in 7A this year when 8A may be better. How would the Caravan do against Naperville Central or in a rematch with Loyola? Probably about as well as they would have done against Glenbard West last year.)

But as I also said in an earlier post, Carmel's Carmel, the team to beat, the New York Yankees of Illinois high school football. And it's been that way for about a hundred years. (That's the 1934 team in the picture above.)

I expect the Bears will give them a really good game (who woulda thunk Downers Grove North would only lose to the Caravan, 7-0?), but I think Carmel wins this one by a field goal.

Next: 8A.