No pads, just orange mesh jerseys and helmets, going through plays with little contact, marching up and down the field.

They ran through a few goal line-plays on the 1-foot line.

"Cut your splits down," a coach said. "This could be the ball game."

The mantra seemed to be that this was not a Class C Super Bowl clash against Watervliet, but just a football game against another worthy opponent in early November. The Black Horses (9-0) will meet Watervliet (7-2) at 7 tonight at Christian Brothers Academy for the right to advance to state play.

"This is going to be for the Super Bowl," said senior captain and right tackle Duke Ekblom. "It's going to be a battle. We're going at it like we do every week, only this is a little more important."

If Schuylerville is to advance to represent Section II, it will have to take down what head coach Greg O'Connor calls a very dynamic offense.

"They've got a lot of excellent skill players," O'Connor said. "They move them all over - in the backfield, with receivers in the slot, put them in motion. They try to get the ball in the hands of their skill players. They're a lot like us."

As is customary, the Black Horses will look to their backfield to make plays on the feet of quarterback Austin Bateman and running back Shane Larkin.

"They run a lot of different formations and they have a couple of trick plays," Larkin said. "They have one or two hard runners. We've got to be careful of the different formations."

Such looks on the other side of the ball just means that O'Connor's team has to recognize what they are seeing earlier and react accordingly.

"We've just got to do what we've done all year and that's get 11 hats to the ball," O'Connor said. "We're not going to make any changes. We've just got to communicate among each other, no blown assignments, be sound in the secondary, be strong up front."

"We studied their defense and can predict what they're going to do," Ekblom said. "There's not much you can surprise us with in Week 10. We prepared as much as we can."

The Black Horses enter tonight's sectional final with minimal injuries, meaning they can and will treat this game as regular as possible.

"It'll be the same for our opponent, we want to peak at seven (o'clock) physically and mentally," O'Connor said, "not two in the afternoon. We want to be ready to go at seven, not 5, not 7:30. We want to play 48 minutes starting at seven."

Keeping things simple, Larkin, a senior captain, has upheld the tone that O'Connor has set.

"We're doing the same things we've practiced week to week," Larkin said. "We won't have any penalties; we'll run hard and hit hard, not anything special.

"We look at it like any other game," he continued. "We're loose and focused and everyone has to be ready at 7 o'clock physically and mentally. It's no use getting hyped up during the day."

Hopes are high, yet reserved for Schyulerville as it tries to keep its season alive.