BURNT HILLS, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Averill Park and Burnt Hills have been fixtures in the Class A playoff picture the past few seasons. This year, the Warriors earned the top seed in the Capital Division, with the Spartans locking up the two seed in the Grasso under first-year head coach Kevin DeBonis. Friday night, the two sides will clash in the section semis in our 1st & 10 “Game of the Week.”

This is the first meeting between the two teams since last year’s Class A semi-final game, where the Warriors unloaded for a 42-21 win. The Spartans had beaten AP 21-0 in the regular season before the playoff loss, and Burnt Hills admits they looked past the Warriors. Not this time.

“The kids’ mindsets were just trying to get back to the Super Bowl and AP punched us in the face,” said Debonis. “This AP team is very similar to that big physical team. I said, ‘However you want to use it for motivation, fine, whatever you’ve got to do. But you need to understand, you need to lock in and prepare the best you can.'”

“We didn’t go into that game thinking they were anything, that we were going to walk through them and then easily go play Nisky, but it wasn’t like that,” said junior running back and linebacker John Gload. “They steamrolled us and we’re not going to let that happen again.”

Burnt Hills travels to Averill Park Friday at 7:00 p.m.