MOUNT CARMEL - Mount Carmel coach Carm DeFrancesco has the scores burned in his memory - "24-21, 13-11, 10-2, 16-8. I lost a lot of sleep over those games."
'Those games' were some of the ones he coached against Mount Carmel when he was head coach at Shamokin, and make up some of the 18 consecutive games the Red Tornadoes have won in the series since 1995.
DeFrancesco, who played for Mount Carmel, has coached at both schools, and knows the ins and outs of the series better than almost anyone. As Shamokin's head coach, the series frustrated him. As Mount Carmel's head coach, he's won four straight Coal Bucket games.
He knows, more than anyone, that sooner or later, Shamokin will beat Mount Carmel. He just doesn't want it to be on his watch. "You can't keep flipping the coin and have it come up heads forever," DeFrancesco said this week. "I figure that in four of the seven years I coached at Shamokin, we had a better team, but Mount Carmel found ways to win those games."
DeFranceco said all his team can do to keep the streak going is work and prepare and do as much as they can to make that coin flip work in their favor. That's exactly what Mount Carmel teams have done. It's what they'll have to do again, since this is seen as a coin-flip game by a lot of people. Mount Carmel is 6-3, Shamokin is 5-4.
"Pat DiRienzo deserves a lot of credit," DeFrancesco said. "He's done a heck of a job. They're a well-coached team. They play hard. I'm happy for him. He was my assistant coach for seven years."
DeFrancesco said Shamokin senior quarterback Tucker Yost has been a big reason for the Indians' success. The 6-foot-3, 215-pounder has been a two-way threat, passing for 825 yards and six touchdowns, and is the Indians' leading rusher with 634 yards and 10 touchdowns.
"He's back at his position and he's playing quarterback at a high level," DeFrancesco said. Running backs Jon Demsko and Preston Burns, and receivers Thomas Campbell, Logan Mirolli and Russell Henz give Yost an array of targets.
Mount Carmel's defense has had its issues, but that unit came up big when it counted in last week's 24-17 overtime win over Central Columbia, with a goal line stand to win the game.
"We were real happy with the way the kids responded in crunch time," DeFrancesco said. "We had a lot of mistakes and were undisciplined at times, but when we had to make a drive, we did, and when we had to have that effort on defense, we did. Blake Panko made a great play on Central's first play of overtime with a shoestring tackle, and the rest of the defense stepped up its effort then."
Most teams that have 18-game winning streaks over another team ususally win many of those games by blowouts, and the Red Tornadoes have had their share of those. But they've also won some very closely contested games, including last season's, when they needed two short field touchdowns in the fourth quarter to beat the winless Indians, 21-0.
"This game is like no other," DeFrancesco said. "Expect four quarters of good football. Neither team will quit."