A couple of thoughts . . . from Week 1
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- The game within the game Friday in Muhlenberg’s match-up vs. Schuylkill Valley was the battle between All-State picks Cameron Small of the Muhls and Logan Cammauf of the Panthers. They’re each the lead ballcarrier on their respective team, as well linebackers and leading tacklers. They went head-to-head play after play and really got after it. It almost seemed as though they were looking for each other. Those two forces neutralized each other. Neither backed down, as you might expect. Terrific stuff to watch.
- Before Friday you’d have to go back to 2022 to find the last time Southern Columbia was mercy-ruled in a regular season game. The Tigers’ season-opener against Wyomissing was expected to be close and was for a while before the Spartans put it away with four third-quarter TDs on the way to a 49-27 win. They led 49-13 before Southern scored a pair of TDs in the final five minutes. Teams haven’t done that against the 14-time state champ very often in recent decades, especially at Tiger Stadium. Wyo, by the way, is now 3-0 against Southern, with two of the wins on the road.
- There was a lot of concern over Wilson’s quarterback situation entering last season. Then Madyx Gruber went out and completed 15-of-21 passes for 172 yards in a season-opening 28-20 win over Cheltenham. Fast forward one year: There was again concern over the QB spot in West Lawn, with people wondering who could possibly fill Gruber’s shoes. Well, Mason Young completed 17-of-22 passes for 190 yards and three TDs in his first start, a 35-24 win over Cheltenham.
- It’s too early to cede the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3 title to Solanco . . . or is it? The Mules looked like a heavy favorite coming into the season and still look like that, despite an opening-week loss to state-ranked Lampeter-Strasburg. The Mules fell 45-44 in overtime on the road to a team coming off a state-championship appearance. No disgrace there. Meanwhile, top Section 3 contenders Cocalico and Manheim Central didn’t distinguish themselves. The Eagles were upset 15-14 by Elizabethtown; the Barons struggled to get past West Philadelphia 47-42 at home.
- Six of the seven teams in Section 2 opened with a win, none more impressively than Elizabethtown, which got a W for first-year coach Tom Gallagher. The only team in the section to lose was Lebanon, of course, which has now dropped 44 straight games.
- Don’t write off Schuylkill Valley, even after that 45-14 loss to Muhlenberg. The Panthers will be just fine once they get to Section 5 play. They didn’t have the speed to keep up with the Muhls but overall their defense played well and didn’t stop fighting, and they showed they’ve got some play-makers on offense. And remember, they were playing up: Schuylkill Valley is a Class 3A school, Muhlenberg is 5A. The Panthers dropped their opener last year and went on to win the section title. They dropped their opener the year before, to Twin Valley, and ended up sharing the Section 5 title.
- Daniel Boone came into the season short-handed and was even more so in its opening loss against Exeter, which led 35-0 after a quarter and 64-0 at the half. The Blazers were without their best player, quarterback Haydn Moyer, who could miss up to a month with an illness. They weren’t going to beat Exeter even with Moyer but the play-maker could’ve helped them compete a little better.
- I’ve been hearing all summer, and then especially after last week’s scrimmage, that Wyomissing’s Justice Hardy had taken his game to another level – even after an All-State sophomore season. Well, that seems to be the case. Southern Columbia sure couldn’t stop him: He went for a pair of touchdowns and 197 rushing yards in the 49-27 win.
- The first game I covered for the Reading Eagle, on Oct. 10 1983, was Schuylkill Valley at Muhlenberg. Gary Distasio opened the scoring with a 77-yard punt return and the Muhls won 47-12. Not much has changed over the years. I opened my 44th season of Berks football Friday with the Muhls and Panthers. Freddy Lacey opened the game with an 89-yard kickoff return and the Muhls went on to win 45-14. (By the way, Muhls coach Rob Flowers was kind enough to point out that he was a year old when I covered that first game.)
