The hype is not what it was last year and I think everyone involved can be grateful for that. Tonight's high school football game at Larrabee Stadium in Ventura between Oaks Christian and St. Bonaventure simply matches two very good schools. It's not the cataclysmic, end-of-the-world, nationally televised event the two schools endured in 2006.

This time around the game hadn't even sold out by Thursday morning. This time most of the media will probably just show up; last year's interest was so huge the schools asked the CIF-Southern Section to manage the media requests.

Last season, the game was televised in Southern California by FSN and shown on many of its regional networks around the country. This time FSN Prime Ticket hoped to show it, but host school Ventura High wouldn't allow the TV crew on its campus to set up before 3:30 p.m., so the network passed. Time Warner Cable will show the game on tape-delay at 11 tonight and at 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Channel 36. Tom West and Dave Wheeler will be the announcers.

A new wrinkle this season is the addition of live radio on KVTA (1520 AM). High school football radio broadcasts have been few and far between in Ventura County over the years, but KVTA has, to some extent, gone out on a limb to broadcast all of St. Bonaventure's games this season, home and away.

The station has gone all out, too. News anchor Ryan Miller does play-by-play, joined by analyst Sam Benner, a Seraphs graduate who started at defensive end four seasons at Stanford. There's also a field reporter, a statistician and at halftime, studio host Danny Page updates listeners with scores of other prep games around the county.

"Ultimately, this was my idea," said Miller. "I had been doing play-by-play for Arena Football and high school football on the East Coast and then came out here to Ventura and convinced KVTA it had to do sports and it took me two years to do it."

Miller said he had also convinced St. Bonaventure coach Jon Mack it would be good to have his games on the radio, but then Mack left the school for Ventura College and there was a whole new regime, headed by new coach Todd Thierrien, athletic director Mike Gianelli and principal Marc Groff. The process essentially had to start over again.

"It wasn't Let's do this,' " said Miller of the school's interest. "It was, How is it going to be received by the community?' (They wanted to know if) we're just going to continue the portrayal of St. Bonaventure as a football machine, and they were really concerned about that.

"Then KVTA said, Is there any demand in the market for football?' So we were down to the wire where we didn't know 100 percent sure we were going to do it until about three weeks before (the first game)."

Miller said the broadcasts have been received well, particularly after a thrilling, 15-14 comeback win at Santa Margarita to open the season.

"We had absolutely no problem finding local businesses to support it," Miller said of the advertising effort. "Not specifically because it was St. Bonaventure, but because it was local community sports."

As far as tonight's game between Oaks Christian and St. Bonaventure is concerned, Benner said there may not be as much at stake as last season, but it may well be the best local game this season.

"I think it's going to be a very intense game on both sides of the football," said Benner. "Although it's not the Jon Mack Show anymore, coach Thierrien has really stepped up and driven himself against some tough competition this year. Oaks Christian still is a powerhouse. They've had a great season so far and won all their games. So I think we're going to have a really, really special night here."

In addition to being on the air, the broadcasts are also streamed online at seraphsfootball.com.

— Staff writer Jim Carlisle covers TV-Radio and also writes Tuesday columns for The Star. E-mail address: jcarlisle@VenturaCountyStar.com. For more, please see his blog at jimcarlislesports.blogspot.com.