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All 14 first place votes went to No. 1 La Salle this week after No. 3 Hendricken took its first loss of the season, 39-13, to No. 2 Portsmouth.
East Providence dropped five spots in the weekly poll to No. 19 after getting shut out by Tolman, 28-0. The Townies travel to South Kingstown tonight at 7 to tangle with an unranked team. East Providence is 1-7 overall and 0-4 in the conference.
The win puts the Patriots in good position for a home game in the Division I playoffs, as long as they can win Friday against No. 4 Cranston East. The Thunderbolts can muddy the picture further with a win of their own though.
The other big movers in this week’s poll were No. 13 West Warwick and No. 18 Westerly, although for the wrong reasons. They lost. And like East Providence, they all fell at least five spots.
The full poll:
| Rank | Team | Points | Last Week | Patch # |
| 1 | La Salle (14) | 280 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Portsmouth | 265 | 4 | 2 |
| 3 | Hendricken | 251 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | Cranston East | 240 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | Johnston | 220 | 5 | 5 |
| 6 | Cumberland | 209 | 6 | 8 |
| 7 | Middletown | 178 | 9 | 9 |
| 8 | Tolman | 172 | t-10 | 6 |
| 9 | Barrington | 166 | 7 | 13 |
| 10 | East Greenwich | 149 | t-10 | 11 |
| 11 | Cranston West | 116 | 13 | 7 |
| 12 | Woonsocket | 88 | 15 | 12 |
| 13 | West Warwick | 76 | 8 | 10 |
| t-14 | Mount Pleasant | 70 | 17 | 19 |
| t-14 | St. Raphael | 70 | 16 | 16 |
| 16 | Central | 68 | 18 | 17 |
| 17 | Rogers | 67 | NR | 18 |
| 18 | Westerly | 57 | 12 | 14 |
| 19 | East Providence | 48 | 14 | 15 |
| 20 | Warwick Vets | 46 | NR | NR |
Dropped from the poll: No. 19 Moses Brown, No. 20 Shea.
Also receiving votes: Mt. Hope (29), South Kingstown (24), Hope (16), Shea (12), Moses Brown (8), Narragansett (2) and North Smithfield (2).
The Rhode Island Sports Media football poll is voted on by 14 local media members who regularly cover Rhode Island high school football. The poll is administrated and compiled by Eric Rueb of Southern Rhode Island Newspapers. Patch’s ballot is cast by Stephen Greenwell, the local editor of the South Kingstown and Narragansett site.
PATCH BALLOT
| Rank | Team | Media | Last Week |
| 1 | La Salle | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Portsmouth | 2 | 3 |
| 3 | Hendricken | 3 | 1 |
| 4 | Cranston East | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | Johnston | 5 | 5 |
| 6 | Tolman | 8 | 7 |
| 7 | Cranston West | 11 | 8 |
| 8 | Cumberland | 6 | 9 |
| 9 | Middletown | 7 | 10 |
| 10 | West Warwick | 13 | 6 |
| 11 | East Greenwich | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | Woonsocket | 12 | 13 |
| 13 | Barrington | 9 | 14 |
| 14 | Westerly | 18 | 12 |
| 15 | East Providence | 19 | 15 |
| 16 | St. Ray's | t-14 | 17 |
| 17 | Central | 16 | 18 |
| 18 | Rogers | 17 | 19 |
| 19 | Mt. Pleasant | t-14 | NR |
| 20 | South Kingstown | NR | 20 |
There isn’t a whole lot of dissension between my ballot and the media results, at least not until you get to the down-ballot ranking of the Division I teams.
I tend to keep teams on unless they’re historically bad, since in inter-Division games (i.e. Division I vs. II), the better division wins almost all of them. I looked at the stats the past couple years, and the winning percentage was something like 75 to 85 percent, but I’ll re-check after the year to make sure that still syncs up.
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