Really, who saw this coming back in August?
We're entering the 14th week of the high school football season, there are only 32 teams still playing across the state, and three of them are right in our neighborhood, with Bear Gap the apparent epicenter of a triangle formed from Shamokin Area to Mount Carmel to Southern Columbia.
Nobody is too surprised at Southern Columbia and Mount Carmel's success. You don't win a combined 11 state championships, with seven runner-up finishes as well, and not have people expecting you to have a shot at a state title, especially when you have veteran teams.
But nothing was guaranteed for either of them, either.
It's been five years since Southern completed its string of five straight state titles with the dominating 2006 team led by Henry Hynoski, and the Tigers, while still very strong, have had their share of playoff hiccups since then. When returning all-state running back Tyrell Thomas was lost for the season on the very first day of practice with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, it put more pressure on Southern, which has responded very well, with only a meltdown in the last five minutes against Mount Carmel blemishing their 12-1 record.
Their 45-34 win over Old Forge on Friday was not a thing of beauty and illustrated nicely both the strengths and weaknesses of this year's Tigers. Offensively, they are very, very potent. What they lack in the brute force of the 2006 team, they make up for with a little more quickness. Defensively though, they can be a bit of a question. They had early troubles on defense, seemed to right the ship in the last four or five games, but took a step back against the small, quick Blue Devils. Old Forge played well enough on its own, but got a lot of help from Southern's fumbles, penalties and shoddy tackling.
The Red Tornadoes are also 12-1, and while a lot of people thought they had a shot at winning their first District 4-AA title since 2008, they spent much of the season playing like they weren't quite sure of it themselves. But lo and behold, here they are, ready to take on one of their playoff nemeses, Lancaster Catholic, next Saturday at their home away from home, Shamokin's Kemp Memorial Stadium. Their 28-0 win over Bloomsburg Friday was a bit of an anticlimax because of the injury to Bloomsburg's Rutgers-bound quarterback, Blake Rankin, but the Red Tornadoes, who have been very resilient, took care of business. Their play upfront on both sides of the ball has Coach Carmen DeFrancesco feeling fairly confident no matter who they play.
But Shamokin?
Just over a month ago, when the Indians were 2-6, if you'd had told someone they'd be playing this week, they'd have looked at you like you were from Mars. That's even given that they were probably going to make the District 4-AAA tournament with a 3-7 record. But three playoff wins later, including two fourth-quarter comebacks, the former over a team which beat them earlier and the latter an overtime win against an 11-1 team three hours away from home, and even their biggest critics have to admit the Indians have proved they belong.
They're not a great team, by any stretch. They're way too young (not necessarily a bad thing) and they don't kill you with speed or size. But as sophomore running back Draven Miller said Friday, there's probably not a team left out there that's playing with more heart right now.
Heart will only get you so far, and the Indians' biggest test yet awaits them Friday at Mount Carmel, when they take on defending state champion Allentown Central Catholic and its hot-wired passing attack led by South Carolina-bound quarterback Brendan Nosovitch and receivers Kevin Guylas and Jalen Snyder-Scipio. But you know what? ACC's defense got torched for 54 points by Valley View on Friday, and that means there might be some things for the Indians' coaching staff to exploit.
No matter what happens, next weekend will be one of the greater football weekends this area has seen in awhile.
Before we finish, we also want to give props to Line Mountain and North Schuylkill. It was pretty apparent that if Southern was going to win its 20th District 4-A title in 21 years, the Tigers were going to have to beat the Eagles to do it. As for North Schuylkill, the Spartans completed their third straight unbeaten regular season, including an impressive win over Mount Carmel, but were just too banged up by playoff time to make headway.
To recap, the records of the five teams in The News-Item's coverage area this year so far have been 12-1, 12-1, 10-1, 10-2 and 6-7. That's a combined 50-12, and when they haven't beat up on each other, it's even better - 46-6. Five of the six losses were by Shamokin, which is still playing, and if you throw the Indians' record out, the other four teams are a combined 40-1 against everybody else, with only Northern Lehigh's playoff win over North Schuylkill the blemish.
It's been quite a season, and it's not over yet.