Week 4 on tap: Hawks face long odds in bid to stay unbeaten
Hamburg enters league play Friday with a perfect record for the first time since 2013.
Remaining unscathed and winning their Berks Football League Section 2 opener will be quite a chore. It always is any time the Hawks line up against Wyomissing.
The Spartans are also 3-0, are ranked No. 3 in the state in Class 3A, and are again a big favorite to win the Berks Football League Section 2 title, as they did in 2020, 2019 and nine times before that.
This will be the Spartans’ last chance to add a Berks title of any kind to their impressive rsume. Next season they, along with the other 12 teams in the Berks Football League, head to the Lancaster-Lebanon League to form a mega 37-team, five-division conference.
That makes Saturday’s 1:30 kickoff at the A-Field the last league opener for Wyomissing as part of what was once known as the Inter-County League.
The I-C predates the Spartans, who were born in 1968 of a merger between Wyomissing High and West Reading.
The I-C goes back 64 seasons, to 1957 — more than a decade before the Hawks and other league members, such as Schuylkill Valley or Kutztown, began playing.
Spartans vs. Hawks highlights the Berks 2 schedule, but it’s far from the biggest game of the week on the Berks slate.
That comes Friday at Shillington where Harrisburg (3-0), ranked No. 9 in the state in Class 6A, meets Gov. Mifflin (3-0), which ascended to the No. 1 spot in Class 5A this week for the first time in program history.
That ranks among the best games in the state.
Elsewhere Friday, Exeter (2-1), fresh off one of the biggest wins in program history, heads to Hempfield (1-2); Wilson (1-2) hosts Martin Luther King (0-1); and Pope John Paul II (2-1) plays at Berks Catholic (2-1) in a battle of playoff hopefuls.
In another interesting Berks 2 opener, Conrad Weiser (2-1) hosts Fleetwood (2-1). The game features the best two quarterbacks in the league, Logan Klitsch of the Scouts and Tanner Maddocks of the Tigers. Klitsch has thrown for a Berks-leading 722 yards; Maddocks hasn’t thrown as often but he’s completing 59 percent of his passes.
Both quarterbacks are also dangerous runners.
Twin Valley (2-1) plays at Kutztown (2-1) in the other Berks 2 opener.
In other non-league games Friday:
Conestoga Valley (1-2) is at Daniel Boone (1-2); Owen J Roberts (2-1) is at Reading High (1-2); Kennard-Dale (2-1) is at Muhlenberg (0-3); Upper Perkiomen (1-2) is at Schuylkill Valley (0-3); and Boyertown (1-2) is at Pottsgrove (2-0).
Hamburg and Wyomissing meet for the 51st time Saturday, and last time as league rivals (at least for the foreseeable future). They’ll be in different sections once they reach the L-L.
The Spartans lead the series 46-3-1 with 30 straight wins; the Hawks’ last win came in 1988.
Half of Wyomissing’s wins in the series have come via shutout, including four of the last five. The Spartans won 45-0 last season.