Four Downs: Four big takes from Week 6
2024 Berks football coverage presented by
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Four biggest takeaways from Week 6 of the 2024 high school football season.
1ST DOWN
The Frost Bowl is classic longstanding traditional rivalry, with all the trimmings. Other than the Rose Bowl, what other football game has its own annual parade?
This year the football game might be even bigger than the King Frost Parade: It might be a championship game.
Hamburg and Schuylkill Valley are each 3-0 and on top in Section 5; they figure to be in that spot in Week 8 when they meet on Hawk Hill for the 43rd Frost Bowl.
The Hawks have already beaten Lancaster Catholic and Annville-Cleona, considered two of the top contenders in Section 5. The Panthers held off Berks Catholic, another team with a title shot, in a 20-14 thriller the other night.
The stage is set for an unprecedented match-up.
Before last year Schuylkill Valley had never finished in first place in football. Hamburg has just one football championship to show for its 55 season, a 1985 Inter-County League title.
One of them is close to adding to that total. And, given the balance in Section 5, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them still sharing first place after 10 weeks.
2ND DOWN
Raise your hand if you had Conrad Weiser and Cocalico sharing first place midway through the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section 3 schedule.
The smart money in the preseason was on Manheim Central. Some liked Garden Spot. One Section 3 coach tabbed Cocalico as the favorite. No one picked Weiser to finish higher than third.
The Scouts have been the breakout team of the Lancaster-Lebanon League. They’re 6-0 and, until Friday’s 56-35 shootout against Solanco, hadn’t broken a sweat on a Friday night. A year ago they finished 2-8.
That record and the hard feelings that went with it simmered throughout the offseason, when the Scouts rededicated themselves. The results are evident on the field.
Weiser still has a long way to go just to get to what could be a championship game in Week 9 at Cocalico. It plays at Garden Spot this week. The Spartans are a dangerous offensive team, though they saw starting quarterback Caileb Howse knocked out of the game early Friday in a 21-6 loss to Warwick.
After that it’s a Week 8 game against Warwick, which just might be the best defensive team in the entire league. The Warriors have allowed three touchdowns in their last four games.
3RD DOWN
Shutouts are rare in football but Twin Valley, Lampeter-Strasburg, and Twin Valley each posted one Friday night.
That says all you need to know about Section 4, where there’s a wider gap between the top teams and those trying to catch them than in any of the five sections of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
The Raiders, Pioneers, and Spartans won by a combined 126-0 this week. They are a combined 17-1 through six weeks. They’re each ranked in the Top 10 in the state in Class 4A, a true rarity.
Their round robin of games is coming soon. Wyomissing plays at Twin Valley in Week 8. Twin Valley plays at Lampeter in Week 9. Lampeter plays at Wyomissing in Week 10, on the final day of the regular season.
4TH DOWN
It didn’t require a stroke of genius to line up Manheim Township and Wilson as the annual Week 10 finale in Section 1 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
Those two programs are head and shoulders above the rest of the section and have been for some time. One or the other has won or shared the section championship 19 times in the last 20 years. The only time that didn’t happen in 2022 when Hempfield caught lightning in a bottle and edged both the Bulldogs and Blue Streaks.
No one in Section 1 is gonna stop Township or Wilson from claiming the title this year.
The Blue Streaks are unbeaten, ranked No. 7 in the state in Class 6A, and have won their first two league games by a combined 86-0 score.
The Bulldogs had a close call in Week 5 when they needed a classic goal-line stand to hold off Cedar Crest. They have not been as dominant as Township but easily could be 6-0 at this point. A fumble at the goal line in the final minute at Nazareth is the only thing keeping them out of a Top 10 spot in the state rankings.
Wilson plays at Township in the final game of the regular season and it’s lining up to be a true championship game.
