The Chaminade Red Devils will host the Riverview Gardens Rams in the MSHSAA Class Five District 3 Playoffs on Thursday evening at 7:00 PM. Chaminade is the heavy favorite, as their record is 5-3 while the Rams are 1-8.
Chaminade’s offense should have a great time facing this Rams defense, as they are averaging 27.8 points scored per game, and Riverview Gardens is averaging 29.1 points given up per game.
Chaminade has had to face some adversity this season with crushing losses at the hands of CBC and De Smet, but head coach Antoine Torrey sounded confident in his team for their upcoming matchup, saying that “We’ve had some tough losses, and the way we have rebounded, although we didn’t get it done against SLUH, we have played so much better and it’s starting to show its face.”
When asked what parts of his team’s game he can use to get a win, Coach Torrey replied by saying his defense is his team’s biggest strength; “SLUH was a very good team and we were able to hold them to 27” and “Our front seven has been stout lately and we know we need to stop the run to be successful when it matters most.”
The Red Devils think they will be able to get through and dominate the line on both sides of the ball, with Senior Kaveon Mitchell saying they’re “big up front but really slow, their linemen. They’re averaging 6’3, 305 on the line. I think we will use our speed against them, and we’ll get the outside edges.”
When asked how they can win Thursday’s game, Junior Carter Chiodini responded by saying that “I think we have to play as ourselves” and “We still can’t overlook this team.”
Chiodini also said, “I feel like we can get deeper in the playbook.”
Coach Torrey said, “We think they are going to want to throw the ball. They’ve shown some deep balls to their slot receiver, D’Andre Thomas; they scored twice with him last week. We need to stay back in the zone and stay on top of him.”
Kaveon Mitchell believes that “We have to execute more. We are in playoff time now, so we know all the plays by heart now. Now it is just identifying them up front and being able to shut it down.”
If Chaminade is able to pull out the win against Riverview, they will face off with the winner of McCluer vs Cardinal Ritter on November 7th of next week. You can find Thursday’s games on CSPN, or you can get tickets on mshsaa.org/tickets.aspx.
