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By Rich Rhoades
The 2007 high school football season gets under way Friday and the composite District 9 schedule features 16
games, including three on Saturday.
What's new this year? In the ever-changing postseason layout, nothing. The postseason gets started as early as
Week 11 when an eight-team Class A playoff begins.
The postseason will come soon enough. What about this week? Six Allegheny Mountain League crossover matchups,
three Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference games and seven games featuring D9 teams against non-conference or
non-district opponents are on tap.
Looking at the games to watch, Curwensville travels to Coudersport in the Allegheny Mountain League. The
two-time defending Class A champion Falcons beat the Golden Tide three times last year, including a 48-21 in
last year's district final. Coudersport has won nine of 11 games against the Tide overall.
In the Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference, Redbank Valley travels to Keystone in a battle of KSAC
contenders. The Bulldogs beat Keystone 34-0 in the Class A playoffs and 13-0 during the regular season a year
ago, upping their winning streak against the Panthers to six games.
In other Friday games in the AML, Cameron County hosts Brockway and Ridgway heads to Smethport. The Elkers
haven't lost to the Hubbers since 1998, a span of just three games. Otto-Eldred hosts Elk County Catholic.
In the KSAC, A-C Valley visits Clarion. The Bobcats have only loss four times to the Falcons and only twice
since 1985. Moniteau hosts Clarion-Limestone. The Warriors have beaten the Lions two of their last three
meetings, after going winless against C-L since 1986.
In Friday's lone non-conference game between D9 opponents, Karns City hosts St. Marys.
In Friday's non-District 9 opponent games, Punxsutawney hosts Hollidaysburg. The Chucks haven't beaten the
Golden Tigers since 1990, a span of 11 games. Clearfield hosts Bald Eagle Area, in its first meeting with its
D6 foe since 2003. Union hosts Cambridge Springs and DuBois treks to Lock Haven to take on Central Mountain.
Saturday, Bradford and Olean, N.Y. square off for the 110th time. The Owls lead the all-time series, 59-43-7.
In the AML, Port Allegany hosts Johnsonburg and Kane visits Sheffield.
NEW COACHES
Among the 26 district teams, four new coaches will be walking the sideline:
Brockway's Frank Varischetti Jr., A-C Valley's Gary Pinkerton, Moniteau's Jeff Campbell and Sheffield's John
Bonavita.
SIMCOE NEARS 200 WINS
On the other side of the spectrum, Coudersport's Paul Simcoe is the longest tenured
coach at one school in his 28th season. He's the all-time winningest coach in D9 history, according to the
pafootballnews.com and needs just four wins to become the first
coach in District 9 and just the 67th coach in Pennsylvania to reach 200 career wins. The most
amazing fact is that of the 66 coaches to reach 200 career wins, only 24 have done it all at one school, which
Simcoe is about to achieve. Clearfield's Tim Janocko (157-80-3)
enters his 23rd season and Clarion's Larry Wiser (124-62-1) starts his 20th season.
GOODBYE D9 LEAGUE
This will be the final year of the District 9 League as Clearfield left to reduce its
league membership to one, the Mountain Athletic Conference-Seven Mountains Division. Punxsutawney is also in
the MAC this year, although the Chucks won't play one of the teams in it this year — Indian Valley.
So that leaves DuBois, Brookville, Punxsutawney, St. Marys and Bradford in the league this year. Next year,
DuBois heads to the MAC, Brookville and Punxsutawney to the KSAC, Bradford to a District 10 conference and St.
Marys to, well, nowhere yet.
The D9 League began play in 1985.
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