EMPORIUM — Ryan Neyman hoped that this would be the year.

The third-year Cameron County football coach watched two youthful Red Raider teams take their fair share of losses, 16 to be exact, over the last two seasons. With his core of players growing into upperclassmen, the hope was that their experience would translate in the win column.

In Week 0, that’s exactly what happened.

Cameron County shocked Coudersport with a 28-27 win, the program’s first since 2018. At the heart of the victory that snapped CC’s 20-game losing streak was its group of veteran skill players and the sophomore quarterback that binds them together.

“I knew we were going to compete,” Neyman said. “When we were able to score and get the two-point conversion in the second quarter to bring us back, there was a lot of emotion. To score on them, that seemed like the starting point of the turnaround.”

It was a turnaround well in the making. The Red Raiders had lost six straight to Coudy prior, and had been outscored by an unfathomable 236-0 in their last five matchups.

When they mounted a defensive stand on 4th and 5, drove down the field and QB Maddox Baughman found Dylan Rieder in the end zone with 51 seconds to play, however, all of the negative emotions that came with the winning streak went away.

“The last two years, we just felt defeated after every game,” said junior Jameson Britton. “Things weren’t going well, but when we finally won that game, the emotions and everything were just amazing. It finally happened and was a great experience.”

After Rieder’s touchdown, Baughman secured the interception that sealed CC’s win, his second of the game. He completed 12-of-24 passes for four touchdowns and two interceptions, including 133 yards through the air to Dylan Baney.

“He’s been around these juniors and seniors the last two seasons,” Neyman said of Baughman. He’s just one of the guys and he plays a vital role. All these guys played iron man football and it was a war of attrition for us, battling through some cramps and injuries in the third quarter.”

The news traveled quickly to Emporium, where the fire department led the team through a downtown strip lined with supporters.

“When we were going through town, even through Austin coming back, cars were beeping and honking with their four-ways on the whole way back,” Neyman said. “It was a beautiful thing to see everyone come together to support these guys.”

With the losing streak snapped, the Red Raiders hope that the support will translate to the stands in Friday’s home opener.

“This win has got to feel good for the entire town,” said senior Derek Cherry. “We’re going to bring a lot more fans to the stands, get a lot more cheers and it’s going to be a lot louder. It will be a really big confidence boost.”

CC wasn’t the only District 9 football team that garnered the area’s attention after Week 0. Port Allegany dominated Otto-Eldred on both sides of the ball en route to a 34-0 win. 

With the Gators’ “big three” of quarterback Drew Evens and running backs Noah Archer and Blaine Moses, Coach Justin Bienkowski knew that this could be a successful season for a program that has not enjoyed a winning season since 2015. After the way Port’s offensive and defensive line groups played on Saturday, however, the Gators could be emerging as a threat in D9’s Small School North division.

“The first thing I said (in the preseason) was that we were going to become a more complete team as quickly as our offensive and defensive lines could catch up to those guys because of their experience,” Bienkowski said. “And I think our guys are picking it up quickly.”

Evens, Archer and Moses helped lead the Gators to 410 yards of total offense against O-E, but were each still disappointed with their performances.

Moses looked back negatively at the fumble he lost. Evens scolded himself for not seeing a safety on an interception he threw. Archer was frustrated at the sight of being tackled by his shoelaces.

Port wants, and will likely need, to continue improving ahead of a Friday test at Keystone. The maturation of the Gator linemen since the first day of practice has been encouraging for Bienkowski, however.

“Again, it’s three weeks,” he said. “So it’s a snapshot of the season. But in those three weeks, they’ve picked up things that we thought were going to take a little bit. However, the reason they’re so successful is because most of them were there all summer.”

A busy summer season allowed Port’s staff to begin installing much of its offensive features, an opportunity for which Bienkowski credited his players.

While the Gators travel to Keystone, Cameron County will host Bucktail (0-1).

The Bucks dropped their season opener to Elk County Catholic last week. Ahead of the first of two matchups between Bucktail and CC this season, Neyman hopes that his Red Raiders will cautiously use their momentum to their advantage.

“Our mindset is that we need to compete, play in and play out,” Neyman said. “We won Coudy, but we’ve got to play everybody like we played at Coudy to have success.”