PHOENIX — UPDATE (3:02 p.m., 8/31/23)
It has been another great week of voting, and we now know which game will be featured as the Game of the Week on Week Two of Friday Night Fever's 34th season!
Nearly 20,000 votes were cast this week, and the winning matchup got more than 58% of the vote!
And without further ado, the honor of being called the Friday Night Fever Game of the Week for Week Two belongs to Snowflake at Cactus!
Congrats to the Lobos and Cobras, 12Sports will be live before your game tomorrow afternoon at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. and your game will be the first game we show on FNF!
Be a believer and catch Friday Night Fever, Arizona's #1 and longest-running high school football show, tomorrow night at 11:35!
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The high school football season is officially underway in Arizona and the 34th season of Friday Night Fever, Arizona's #1 and longest-running high school football show, is rolling into Week 2! Now it is time to reveal the Game of the Week nominees.
But first, thank you to everyone who opened up their computer, phone, and/or tablet and voted in Week 1. We had a great start to the season as we received 40,165 votes! Hamilton at Liberty was the winning matchup for most of the week, but Desert Edge at Centennial won out after a late surge pushed them to almost 54% of the votes.
Let's beat that total in Week 2!
Now, here are the games you will get to choose from:
Mountain View at Saguaro
Game #1 comes to us from the East Valley and is a matchup between two schools that have not met on the football field since 1992: Mountain View at Saguaro.
Arizona is in a different era of football since the last time the Toros and Sabercats played. In 1992, legendary head coach Jesse Parker was still leading the Toros, who were one of the top programs in the state. That has flipped in the 31 years since, as Saguaro is now a perennial Open Division contender, even winning it all in 2021 and finishing as the runner-up in the Open last year.
Both teams come into this game 1-0. The Toros beat Queen Creek 40-20 in Week 1, while Saguaro took down ALA-Queen Creek 49-35.
These two schools first met on the gridiron in the 1978 playoffs, a game won by Mountain View. The other six games have all come in the regular season, with Saguaro only winning once (1989).
Highland at Basha
We're staying in 6A and in the East Valley for Game #2 this week for what could be one of the most exciting early-season matchups this year!
We have the reigning Open Division champion Basha Bears hosting the two-time reigning 6A champs, the Highland Hawks.
Basha looked every bit as good as the team that won the Open last year as they thumped Westwood, 66-7.
Highland, on the other hand, handily defeated Mountain Ridge, 45-14.
These schools also know each other fairly well, as they have played 10 times since 2004. Basha is 7-3 in those matchups, which includes their lone meeting in the playoffs (2006). The Bears and Hawks have split the last two meetings with Highland winning in 2019 and Basha winning in 2021.
Snowflake at Cactus
Our third and final matchup for this week will be out in the West Valley and will feature our first out-of-Valley team in 2023 as Snowflake will travel 180 miles southwest to take on Cactus in a 4A-5A matchup.
These two schools have been incredibly successful in recent years. Cactus went 46-15 (including playoffs) between 2018-22 and made appearances in the 4A (2020) and 5A (2022) state championship games. In that same timeframe, Snowflake went 52-11 (including playoffs), won back-to-back 3A state championships (2020 and 2021), and finished as the runner-up in 4A in 2022.
This year, Cactus started their season with a 41-32 win over Sunnyslope and Snowflake lost to Bradshaw Mountain 24-14.
However, the last time Snowflake lost their season opener (2020, to Valley Christian), they went the rest of the season undefeated and won a state title.
This will be the second matchup ever between the Lobos and Cobras. Last year, Cactus won 7-0.
VOTE
Now it is time for you to make your choice for which game should be named the Game of the Week for Week One of Friday Night Fever!
Make your choice in the poll below (and remember, you can vote as many times as you want, so be sure to refresh the page and vote again), and if you don't see the poll, click here.
The poll will be open until Thursday at 10 a.m. Be a believer and catch Friday Night Fever this Friday at 11:35 p.m.!