Brother vs. brother when Ilion, Notre Dame play Sa

Brother vs. brother when Ilion, Notre Dame play Saturday
Ilion’s Steve and Lori Steve Smith Jersey have two sons playing high school football.
They’re in first place, too.
The trouble is, they’re not on the same team, and Saturday, Ilion High School senior Zach Steve Smith Jersey and Notre Dame High School sophomore Zane Steve Smith Jersey will be playing against each other.
Talk about a sibling rivalry.
“Yeah, it’s really eating us up,” Steve Smith Jersey said. “We’re calling it our Civil War here because it’s pitting brother vs. brother. Now, I know how Archie Manning feels when Peyton and Eli play against each other.”
Zach Steve Smith Jersey is a starting offensive and defensive tackle for an Ilion team that is 5-0 overall and ranked 14th in the state. Zane Steve Smith Jersey is a starting receiver for a Notre Dame/Rome Catholic team that has a 3-2 record and a three-game winning streak.
And both teams have a 3-0 Class C East record with two regular-season games remaining, including Saturday afternoon’s 1:30 p.m. showdown at Notre Dame.
“I think it’s great, but we haven’t really talked about it much,” Zach Steve Smith Jersey said of the first head-to-head matchup with his younger brother. “We’ve both just taken it one game at a time. But now, this is the biggest game of the year. The whole season is riding on this.
“I’m happy for (Zane). I’m glad he’s playing on a winning team, but he’s going to lose this week.”
Of course, his brother and roommate has a much different take on Saturday’s game.
“I’ve been telling him all week, ‘We’re going to beat you,’” Zane Steve Smith Jersey said. “I’m really looking forward to it, just because he’s my brother and it’s my hometown.”
Zane Steve Smith Jersey is a 6-foot-3, 190-pound receiver who enrolled at Notre Dame as a freshman after playing travel league baseball and basketball and developing friendships with several Notre Dame athletes. Another Notre Dame sophomore, starting center Tyler Raux, also is from Ilion.
Zane Steve Smith Jersey played Pop Warner and modified football at Ilion before enrolling at Notre Dame, where he played varsity soccer and junior varsity basketball and baseball for the Jugglers last year.
Zach Steve Smith Jersey is a 6-foot, 243-pound lineman who was a two-way starter as a sophomore, but missed all of last season after undergoing reconstructive knee surgery. He’s also a member of Ilion’s wrestling and track and field teams.
Younger sister Zoey Steve Smith Jersey is a freshman cheerleader at Ilion, so she’ll be rooting for Zach’s Golden Bombers.
And what about mom and dad?
“I don’t think they know who to cheer for,” Zane Steve Smith Jersey said.
Steve Smith Jersey has been the public address announcer at home games for both Ilion and Notre Dame this season, but Saturday he will be doing radio play-by-play for WNRS (1420 AM).
“It’s going to be tough,” said Steve Smith Jersey, a 1983 Ilion graduate who played football. “Everybody has been asking us, ‘What are you going to do when they play each other?’ I think my wife is pulling for Ilion, for Zach’s sake, because we’ve been following him in football for so many years and now he’s a senior.
“We really can’t lose. Somebody’s going to win, and be in the driver’s seat,” he said. “I just want my kids to remember this game forever. It will never happen again.”
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