HS Football: Port, Coudy wins create Class A shuffle; league champs St. Marys extend streak

PORT ALLEGANY — All eyes interested in high school football, whether they’ll admit it or not, are turning their attention to the District 9 playoffs.

After crowning a trio of divisional winners last week, focus now shifts to potential postseason matchups as teams traverse the last week of the regular season.

The Class A implications surrounding Cameron County’s Friday trip to Port Allegany were evident long before that game kicked off. After a big win for Port, an upset in Coudersport and more self-inflicted wounds by the district’s Small School South Division, however, playoff fields have started to become clear through nine weeks.

Port headlined a busy football Friday by beating the Red Raiders by three scores. Drew Evens threw for 171 yards while Blaine Moses and Noah Archer combined for another 251 yards on the ground, helping the Gators to a win that leveled their record and bolstered their postseason footing.

“It would be very naive to say we didn’t know Cameron County had figured things out down there, and they played really hard,” Port coach Justin Bienkowski said. “I was very concerned with that level of physicality, and we needed to match that. But I was very happy with the way our line stepped up.”

Port and CC each left Friday’s contest at 4-4. So did Coudersport, however, which shocked a Noah Lent-less Smethport with a 6-0 win the same night.

Last week’s results chiseled the Class A field down to its eight playoff qualifiers — the three outsiders (Elk County Catholic, Otto-Eldred and Sheffield) each finished their respective season and don’t have the power points to catch the eight teams above them. The order in which the top eight will finish, however, and the quarterfinal matchups that will come as a result, are still yet to be determined.

The season’s final week presents an opportunity for some teams, but not all.

ECC, O-E and Sheffield don’t have another game scheduled. Neither does Smethport, which clinched its second consecutive Small School North Division title despite last week’s loss, or Class 4A Bradford, which will forgo its final scheduled game against Bald Eagle.

Others will play Friday, putting their records at risk while aiming to pick up more power points, the decisive variable in each’s postseason hopes. Notably, Port will host Kane while Coudy travels to Union/A-C Valley and CC plays at Bucktail, a trio of games that will help decide where each team will play its quarterfinal.

The standings included below speak for themselves. But last week also saw the South’s contenders continue to beat up on each other — Redbank Valley beat U/A-C, which owns a win over Keystone, after RBV lost to Keystone earlier in the year.

The result was a tie atop the division between RBV and Keystone, while U/A-C and Brockway each finished runner-up with two losses. Brockway will join Kane, Ridgway and others in a seven-team Class 2A field, while St. Marys — champions of the D9 Large School Division for the second consecutive year — will await a Class 3A title game with Clearfield.

“Every game we battled some sort of adversity,” St. Marys coach Chris Dworek said. “When you play tough teams close, that adversity is magnified. We were able to overcome a lot of that, keep our emotions in check and bounce back from mistakes very well.”

The Flying Dutchmen beat Kane, 43-19, last week to cap an 8-1 trek through their division. Week 0’s three-score loss to rival Ridgway feels long gone after the Dutch’s eight-game win streak and the Elkers’ three in-league losses.

Dworek recalled holding a team meeting after the Ridgway game. Since then, he said, his players have played with a newfound fire each week.

“Even the first couple wins after that, we really strived and pushed for perfection in practice,” Dworek said. “The players responded well to the challenge, and that’s something to be proud of.”

A 9-0 Clearfield team stands in between St. Marys and a D9 Class 3A title, however. The Bison have blown through their Mountain Athletic League schedule, scoring over 40 points per game while allowing a total of 40 points.

Before meeting Clearfield, the Dutch will travel to District 6’s Tyrone Friday to conclude their regular season.

“We talked about it (Monday) at length — we definitely have two games left, and 9-1 sounds a lot better than 8-2,” Dworek said. “It’s a chance to improve, a chance to go against a good team and measure ourselves again.”

Before the Bison and Dutch collide to decide Class 3A, however, many remaining questions surrounding the two classes below will be answered.

“Our goal is to always play our best football at the end (of the season),” Bienkowski said. “Whether that’s one win, 10 wins or whatever it is, we want to make sure we play our best football at the end and I like the direction we’re going. We’ve got all of our guys back for the most part, and we’re going to be full speed ahead Friday and hopefully for the playoff push.”

DISTRICT 9 FOOTBALL POSTSEASON STANDINGS

Class A W-L Points