PALM BEACH COUNTY – We have officially completed the regular season.
Now that we have moved on from the meat of the fall campaign, we will take a quick look at our next-to-last Top 10 team rankings for this year.
The action that took place in our area will explain how we were able to come up with this week’s Top 10.
With that said, let us waste no time by putting the latest Top 10 out right now.
HONEST IMPRESSION: PLAYOFF TEAMS ONLY
We are going to keep this week’s Top 10 analysis as concise as we possibly can.
For the top five teams, there was no reason to make any changes, as all of them won their respective Week 11 games.
It is quite clear that No. 1 Cardinal Newman (10-0) is this year’s best team in Palm Beach County, given the fact it is the only one to have an undefeated regular season.
As for everyone else, we will shift our focus to the teams ranked below No. 5.
No. 6 Boynton Beach and No. 7 Santaluces both finished the regular season with 8-2 records. Santaluces did take out Boynton Beach in their head-to-head in Week 2 by a score of 22-7, but a lot has changed since them.
The recent two-game losing streak by Santaluces (21-18 loss to Park Vista in Week 10; 49-7 loss to No. 4 Atlantic in Week 11) stands out, which explains the drop from No. 6 to No. 7.
Boynton Beach is on a seven-game winning streak, which helps to explain its rise to No. 6.
Meanwhile, King’s Academy took a two-spot drop from No. 6 to No. 8 due to its Week 11 loss to a returning Top 10 team in Benjamin (5-4).
At No. 9, Inlet Grove (7-2) stayed in its place, even with its 36-6 home win last week over Palm Beach Christian Prep (6-2 final record).
Bringing up the rear is No. 10 Benjamin, which took out former No. 10 Dwyer (7-3) due to two things that happened in Week 11:
•Benjamin’s 21-7 road win over King’s Academy
•Dwyer’s closer than expected 16-0 road win over Palm Beach Lakes (0-10)
Dwyer is the first team we dropped out of the Top 10 with a win, which explains the unique kind of regular season it has had.
With that said, Dwyer is one of five FHSAA playoffs teams in our last Close to 10 mentions of the season. We also have Boca Raton (6-4; one week in our Top 10 this season), Jupiter (5-5), St. Andrew’s (7-3; five weeks in our Top 10
this season), and Wellington (6-4; two weeks in our Top 10 this season) in our Close to 10.
To close this one out, all 15 teams mentioned have qualified for the postseason, which begins on Monday, Nov. 14.
The final Top 10 of this year will be released once all 15 Palm Beach County teams in the playoffs have ended their respective seasons for good.
PHOTO CREDITS: Future Draft Style
