Mercury Week 10 Football Review: ‘Selection Sunday’ provides few anxious moments

Between Friday night’s PAC crossover games going final and the Sunday morning announcement of the brackets for the District One football championships stood approximately 36 hours of rumors, speculation, and assumptions that, while often proven true, almost always yield one or two surprises.

For high school football fans, Week 10 can be one of the most exciting nights of the year. League champions are crowned, playoff tickets are cashed – or dashed – and entire seasons hang in the balance. But amidst the excitement and several dozen games taking place and ultimately concluding at once, confusion ultimately reigns.

This is all an explanation for any role this writer may have played in contributing to some of that confusion Friday night, as the matchups took form on the PIAA District One website.

Going into the evening, Spring-Ford sat at No. 7 in a 16-team field, comfortably in position to host an opening-round game. But as the Rams were putting the finishing touches on their first PAC championship since 2015, chaos reigned throughout District One. Highly rated Abington and Souderton were losing their respective contests, while Downingtown East was about to send Coatesville to its first Ches-Mont loss in four seasons. Suddenly, the Rams, who went into Friday concerned about protecting their home-field advantage in round one, were staring at the possibility of hosting two rounds’ worth of District contests.

Meanwhile, Perkiomen Valley and Owen J. Roberts were taking care of business in their own crossover matchups, sealing their own spots in the bottom half of the 6A brackets. The mystery remained, who would they face in round one?

As the power rankings took shape on the website, it became clear the top three seeds would belong to 9-1 Downingtown West, Central Bucks West and Garnet Valley, in that order. Sitting alone in the 14th spot, Owen J. Roberts quickly drew Garnet Valley as its first-round matchup.

The chaos and moving parts focused upon spots 4-11, where Coatesville originally sat at No. 10 – not a particularly attractive first-round draw for any hosting team. Ultimately, however, the Red Raiders would move to No. 7 via some Saturday afternoon results. But the local drama occurred at the No. 4 spot, where Spring-Ford sat tied with Downingtown East and Abington at a power ranking of 162. At that moment, the rankings read No. 4 Spring-Ford, No. 5 Downingtown East, and No. 6 Abington, as the tiebreakers were not yet applied.

No big deal, except for one detail – toward the bottom of the bracket, one more spot had been clearly established: No. 13 Perkiomen Valley.

The possibility of ‘running it back’ between the two teams that had played the Area’s Game of the Year just two weeks earlier? The No. 13 Vikings, eager to avenge the week 9 defeat, this time at the home of the PAC Champion Rams? It didn’t take much to fuel speculation via Twitter, text message, or any other form of rapid communication.

Fortunately, almost as quickly some voices of reason swooped in, pointing out that as soon as the powers that be had time to consider the three-way tie, Downingtown East would ascend to the No. 4 spot by virtue of their 9-1 regular season record (as opposed to the Rams and Abington at 8-2) and would host Perkiomen Valley in a rematch of a week 2 matchup.

Spring-Ford would narrowly top Abington for the No. 5 spot on strength of schedule and would play host to Central League runners-up and No. 12 seed Haverford. In the words of Apollo Creed, there “ain’t gonna be no rematch.”

Unless the Rams and Vikings both prevail this Friday – then the two squads would indeed meet at Coach McNelly Stadium for a district quarterfinal. But we’ve learned the lesson about getting ahead of ourselves.

A Bitter End >> Meanwhile, still reeling from a 35-0 loss to Owen J. Roberts. Pottstown’s playoff chances saw one last flicker of hope, as they finished in a dead-even draw for the fourth and final spot in the Class 4A district playoffs. Unfortunately, the tie was with Upper Moreland, who bested the Trojans 25-13 in week two and thus took the final playoff spot.

The disappointment doesn’t take away from the success of an extremely young Pottstown squad in 2019. Roster attrition and injuries forced about a dozen freshmen to play critical roles for the Trojans this season, and it all paid off in valuable experience going forward. Friday night may not have played out ideally, but there should be brighter days ahead for first-year coach Jeff Delaney and his charges.

Saying Goodbye >> Boyertown’s Jamie Moccia ended his unique high school career with a bang, going for 122 rushing yards and two scores in the Bears’ 31-19 victory over Phoenixville. Moccia finished the season with 11 rushing TDs, but perhaps more impressively as the only Boyertown player to return four kickoffs for greater than 90 yards (all touchdowns) in a career. Mason Marinello provided one of the year’s feel-good stories, earning the starting quarterback job for the Bears after nearly sustaining a career-ending injury as a sophomore.

Exeter bottled up Daniel Boone’s Tanner Vanderslice on Thursday night, but the senior running back finished the year with 1,073 rushing yards and provided one of the season’s highlights when he broke the Berks County single-game rushing record with an eye-popping 403 yards in a week 8 victory over Muhlenberg.

Methacton, Phoenixville, Norristown, and Upper Perkiomen also finished out the 2019 campaign Friday night. None of the four teams had especially good luck with injuries this season, as each saw its (projected) leading rushers sidelined for extended periods of time. Phoenixville and Upper Perk, respectively, have another two years of the services of Owen Koch and Logan Simmon. Methacton’s Mike Torcini managed a touchdown in a loss to Upper Merion, while juniors Zion Malone and Elijah Twyman’s late-season emergences give Norristown hope going into 2020.

A Look Ahead >> Run defense figures to be a heavy emphasis for the Liberty Division playoff teams this week in practice. Newly crowned league champs Spring-Ford prepare for the prolific Trey Blair and Haverford, while Owen J. Roberts gets ready to face Central League champions Garnet Valley. Perkiomen Valley’s aforementioned rematch with Downingtown East will wait until Saturday night, as Downingtown West is using Kottmeyer Stadium for its own game Friday.

In the 5A bracket, preparation for Upper Merion’s opening-round matchup with Strath Haven figures to be similarly ground based, as the Central League’s Panthers have yet to attempt even 50 passes over the 2019 season.

Pottsgrove and Pope John Paul II will host first-round contests in the 4A and 3A brackets, respectively. The Falcons welcome Bishop Shanahan for the second consecutive season, while PJP II will host District 12’s School of the Future at Norristown High on Friday night.