Fielder’s Choices: Bishop Gorman, Liberty tune up for 5A showdown

This week’s Class 5A Southern Region semifinals remind me a lot of when my grandpa used to watch pro boxing on this show they called “Wide World of Sports.”

There are two co-main events.

In the first one, No. 1-ranked Bishop Gorman plays Foothill.

In the second one, No. 2 Liberty plays Arbor View.

This would be like in old-time boxing if Muhammad Ali fought somebody like Jerry Quarry in one co-main event, and Joe Frazier fought somebody like Oscar Bonavena in the other, with two big differences.

Instead of having to wait months or even years for the two heavyweights of local high school football to go toe to toe, we only have to wait one more week. (Barring an upset bigger than that Buster Douglas guy over Mike Tyson.) And we won’t have to pay a $79.99 pay-per-view cost to see it.

Foothill at Bishop Gorman

When these teams played two weeks ago, Bishop Gorman won 59-0 — which is sort of like Ali defeating Jerry Quarry on an early round TKO. Except Foothill didn’t bleed as much as Quarry.

Bishop Gorman has outscored Nevada teams 324-0 this season. That isn’t quite as impressive as Georgia Tech defeating Cumberland College 220-0 in 2016 (thanks Google machine), but as real sports writers and that Joe Buck guy likes to say at the World Series, it’s sort of in the ballpark. Bishop Gorman by 49.

Arbor View at Liberty

Whereas Bishop Gorman has outscored Nevada opponents 324-0, Liberty has outscored them only 405-53 — which is sort of like Joe Frazier beating up on Joe Bugner, or somebody like that.

Liberty already has defeated Arbor View, 42-14 on opening night of the season. Although Arbor View probably has improved a lot since then, so, too, has Liberty — the Patriots’ only loss was to Mater Dei of California, still ranked No. 1 in the entire nation. Liberty by 35.

Season predictions: 36-11

Against the spread: 29-16-2

Fielder is a Review-Journal correspondent during the high school sports season when he isn’t slacking off. He currently cannot be reached because his cellphone fell out of his pocket while he was skateboarding and the screen broke.

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