As hard as it is to believe, we’ve already reached the halfway point of the high school football regular season. It seems like yesterday that teams were revving up for Week 0 and fans needed to make sure they brought extra sunscreen.
But with the temperatures starting to dip, the parkas and jackets will start coming out, and teams are bearing down for the crucial stretch run rife with playoff implications.
A little wet out there
Mother Nature had been fairly cooperative through the end of August and most of September. But the weather sure wreaked havoc on Week 4’s slate of games all across District 9.
Rain, thunder, and lightning throughout the area forced a number of games to be pushed up an hour. The Smethport-Otto-Eldred contest, in fact, had to be pushed back past 9 p.m. before the game even got underway due to Homecoming schedule conflicts.
Unfortunately, a number of Homecoming activities at various schools were affected by the inclement weather. On-field ceremonies had to be shortened or in some cases done away with all together.
Two games were called off in the fourth quarter due to weather concerns, with the silver lining being that both contests — Coudersport blanking Port Allegany 61-0 and Clarion-Limestone routing Redbank Valley 42-16 — were essentially already over.
With more schools planning their respective Homecomings this week, here’s hoping for clear skies come Friday night.
Hubbers maintain grip on North
It’s a shame that the aforementioned Hubbers-Terrors game was delayed, not just because it featured a pivotal matchup between North Tier rivals that had major playoff and divisional implications. But also because it turned out to be a heck of a game.
Smethport held on to defeat Otto-Eldred 22-20 to improve to 5-0, making the Hubbers the last remaining unbeaten in the Small School ranks.
The win also gave Smethport an even firmer grip on the race for first in the Small School North Division. With Otto now 2-1 in the division and behind on the head-to-head tiebreaker, Smethport’s biggest threat looks to be Coudersport, which has an identical 3-0 division record but a 4-1 overall mark.
After this week’s crossover matchups, the Falcons will host the Terrors next week in a bid to stay within striking distance of Smethport. If Coudy handles its business at home, all eyes will turn to the October 19th showdown between the Hubbers and Falcons in Coudersport that would be a defacto Small School North title game.
All of that is a ways off, however. You can be sure all three North Tier rivals are focusing on this week and this week alone right now.
Playoff races taking shape
In addition to the quests to capture the Large School, Small School North, and Small School South Division titles, every team is D-9 is also jostling for position in their respective district classifications.
Despite falling to 2-3 with Friday’s 12-7 loss to Moniteau, Bradford remains in a good position to make a return trip to the Class AAAA playoffs. Of the six-team group that includes the Owls, Bellefonte, Clearfield, DuBois, Johnstown, and Juniata, four will earn playoff spots.
With Bellefonte and Clearfield both starting the season 5-0 and Johnstown and Juniata both sitting at 0-5, Bradford will likely be competing with DuBois (also 2-3) for the number three seed in the Sub-Regional bracket.
By the District 9 playoff points formula — which takes into account the size of a school a team defeats — DuBois has 260 points while Bradford has 180.
At the AA level, all eight schools in the class are eligible to compete in the playoffs, so those teams are playing for seeding. But a clear-cut top three has already emerged: Ridgway (5-0), Clarion (5-0), and Brockway (4-1).
After ending Brockway’s undefeated season last week, the Elkers currently sit in the top spot with 630 points. This marks the first season that the Ridgway/Johnsonburg co-op is competing as a AA program, and the Elkers look like they could very well add to their back-to-back Class A titles from 2016 and ‘17.
Meanwhile, the Class A race features 11 schools vying for eight spots. It’s already shaping up to be the most wide-open race in the district, with seven teams currently boasting winning records. Smethport sits in the top spot at 5-0, but Clarion-Limestone, Redbank Valley, and Coudersport all sit at 4-1, with C-L’s total of 520 points not that far off from the Hubbers’ leading number of 600.
