By Rich Rhoades

A rare milestone is on the verge of being reached in the District 9 football coaching ranks, but it won’t be achieved anywhere near District 9 if it happens Friday night.

Clearfield Bisons coach Tim Janocko will take his 5-1 Bisons on the road to Berks County for a non-conference game at 1-4 Hamburg. Janocko, in his 27^th season, owns a 199-93-3 career record. His next win would make him just the second 200-win coach in District 9 history. Coudersport’s Paul Simcoe retired after the 2007 season with 204 wins.

Back in District 9, the unbeaten list is cut to just two teams thanks to Clearfield’s loss to Philipsburg-Osceola last week. Coudersport and Moniteau are 6-0 as the only teams with perfect records.

Here’s a look at this week’s schedule, which includes 14 games, 13 of them Friday night:

Allegheny Mountain League

The standings are clogged up quite a bit in the South Division where Elk County Catholic (5-1) holds a one-game edge over three 4-2 teams — Curwensville, Ridgway and Brockway. The right combination of results could put three teams in a tie for first place at 5-2.

First-place ECC travels to Brockway in one of the key AML-South games. It’ll be a battle of run-oriented offenses. Cole Gerber (609 yards, 7 TDs) and Brock McCullough (383 yards, 5 TDs) lead the Crusaders while quarterback Kyle Braun (703 yards rushing, 7 TDs; 325 yards passing) and Tom Vervoort (532 yards, 6 TDs) lead the Rovers.

Ridgway hosts Curwensville as the Elkers will try to end a seven-game losing streak to the Golden Tide, who have beaten the Elkers by a margin of over 38 points per game during that span. Last year, Curwensville routed Ridgway, 61-14.

But this year, the Elkers are better. First-year senior Eric Matheson has given them a jolt as he ranks second behind the Tide’s Alex Holland on the district scoring list. He’s scored 13 touchdowns overall, five on returns, with 376 yards rushing and 228 yards receiving. Matheson’s teammate Sam Delhunty has rushed for 341 yards.

Curwensville’s Holland is the district’s top rusher with 1,339 yards and 17 touchdowns. He’s also approaching another milestone with 4,759 career-rushing yards.

Also in the AML-South, Johnsonburg (0-6) hosts Kane (3-3)

In the AML-North, unbeaten Coudersport (6-0) visits Smethport (1-5) and Cameron County (1-5) visits Cameron County (1-5). Saturday, Second-place Port Allegany (5-1) travels to Sheffield (2-4) as Gators junior quarterback Matt Bodamer is poised to go over 5,000 career passing yards with 4,963 yards. For the year, he’s passed for 1,732 yards with 24 touchdown passes against just three interceptions.

Keystone Shortway Athletic Conference

Two KSAC-Large School Division games top the conference’s headline matchups. Unbeaten Moniteau hosts Punxsutawney (2-4). Warriors quarterback Tyler Armagost (988 yards passing, 10 TDs; 618 yards rushing, 10 TDs) is poised to go over 1,000 yards passing while running back Dustin Geagan (887 yards rushing, 9 TDs) is also close to going into four-digit territory. Punxsutawney quarterback Garrett Zimmerman has passed for 916 yards and seven touchdowns.

Brookville (3-3) heads to Karns City (3-3) as the Raiders are looking for their first regular-season win there since 1972, a span of just seven games at 0-5-2.

In the KSAC-Small School Division, first-place Clarion (4-2) hosts winless A-C Valley (0-5), Union (3-3) travels to Keystone (2-4) and Redbank Valley (2-4) hosts Clarion-Limestone (1-5).

Other games

DuBois and St. Marys square off in DuBois in a non-conference matchup of 5-1 teams. Sean Sleigh has passed for 1,149 yards and eight touchdowns while St. Marys running back Cody Baker ranks second in the district with 988 yards and 12 touchdowns.

In Clearfield’s game at Hamburg, the Bisons will try to rebound from a 40-33 loss to Philipsburg-Osceola last week, their first setback to the Mounties since 1995. The loss also snapped a 19-game regular-season winning streak dating back to the end of the 2009 season. Bisons running back Beau Swales is fourth in the district with 881 yards rushing.

Warren (2-4) visits Bradford (2-4) in a District 10 Region 6 game.