Just because of what happened in the final week of the regular season in Class AA, I don’t think many people expected Saratoga to be taking on Shaker in the Super Bowl. Shenendehowa beat Saratoga 35-7, only for Saratoga to come back one week later, when it mattered most, and win.

That means Saratoga and Shaker will go head-to-head for Section II Class AA supremacy. In my opinion, Saratoga, for some reason, has flown under the radar in recent years. If you’re not paying close attention, it might surprise you to know the Blue Streaks have played in the sectional championship game in three of the last four years. They won it in 2015, and that team made it all the way to the state championship game.

For some reason, Saratoga hasn’t been "the talk" of Class AA, even though they’ve earned the right to be one of the most talked-about teams. Head Coach Terry Jones and his players don’t mind that people weren’t talking about them all season.

"We’re the northernmost AA school, and maybe we go under the radar, but we’re OK with that," Jones says. "We don’t have any objections to that. We’re just happy doing what we do, and we've been happy with the results the past few years."

You’ve seen Saratoga three times on our air this year. The biggest difference to me in this most recent game was the energy with which they played. The Blue Streaks came out fired up and ready in the sectional semifinal. They marched down the field right away and put points on the board and their defense was suffocating.

Senior Chris Klimek says the energy was definitely up.

"Some of us seniors could have one week left of playing together, and I think that was our biggest driving force of we don’t want to end this season," he says.

If Saratoga comes out with that fire again, this will be a different game than Shaker’s 48-28 win in Week 3.

Shaker goes into this game undefeated at 9-0. The Blue Bison have been arguably the most consistent AA team over the last decade. There’s definitely a Blue Bison way.

Shaker is a ground-and-pound team that year-in and year-out plays great defense. The Blue Bison have so many players who can run the ball that it’s ridiculous. They lost arguably their biggest threat, Jovani Wiggs, to a broken leg back in Week 4, but they’re still rolling.

They have speed with Ravion Burt and Logan Souza, but the biggest X factor to me is fullback Joe Toutai. He garners so much attention with or without the ball. Toutai is big. He's 6-foot-1, 280 pounds and he’s solid. He just runs people over.

The most impressive part of his offense might actually be when he doesn’t have the ball. On more than one occasion this season, he has faked out our cameras and opposing defenses because he sells the fake so well. He’s got four guys tackling him and the cameras on him, and 40 yards away, another player is about to make his way into the end zone. It’s beyond impressive.

It’s so good it’s something Head Coach Greg Sheeler has to tell the refs about.

"We’ve had to make sure we talk to the officials every game to make sure they make sure he doesn’t have the ball when he’s tackled," Sheeler says.

Shaker hasn’t changed much since Sheeler has taken over. Shaker runs the Wing-T. They’re the only AA team to run that offense, and they do it very well. Don’t plan on them deviating from that just because a title is on the line.

"Yeah, we don’t change things up. I am not that type of person. When we get to Week 10, it’s for a reason. We’ve put a lot of work into the season. We work hard at what we do to make ourselves successful, so we’ll stick with what we do," Sheeler says.

EXTRA POINTS

• The 28 points Shaker gave up to Saratoga last time they saw one another was the most they’ve given up this season.

• Saratoga got a pep talk on Tuesday from former longtime head coach Blase Iuliano. Iuliano’s message: make every play count, saying, "Every play is a work of art."