On the GEFA Trail—A Pair of All-Star Games, GEFA and The Dream Game!
Tagged under: All-Stars, District 2, Gameday Hub, GEFA, News
Guy Smith | July 22, 2024
2024 Episode 14. We were planning on going to our 20th and final Spring/Summer football game this weekend, but by some luck we ended up with a 21st. This was easily the most football games we have ever attended during the spring and summer months. And although 21 is only a small percentage of the 109 sporting events we have been to so far this year, it has put football on a course to possibly end up as our most watched sport in 2024, a mark held by auto racing every year for Guy since 1973.
The plan for Thursday was collegiate wood bat summer league baseball in New Jersey. But on Tuesday we happened to spot a post in PA Football News that the Scranton Lions City vs. County Dream Game was postponed until Thursday due to the poor Wednesday forecast. We had never been to that game; in fact we had never heard of it. We discussed the possibility of replacing collegiate baseball with high school football, and decided to make the change to our schedule.
Not only had we never heard of the game, but we could not have gone on Wednesday as Guy has a Wednesday commitment to cover the races at the Kutztown Fairgrounds Action Track USA for Area Auto Racing News. As a side note, they only completed one heat race and seven laps of the second at Kutztown on Wednesday before rain wiped out the rest of the show.
Our plan all along for Saturday had been to attend the GEFA All-Star Game, ever since they announced the game would be played on the neutral site of Southern Columbia High School. The 1st Annual GEFA Games preceded the all-star game.
GAME 20. THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2024. SCRANTON LIONS 90TH CITY VS COUNTY DREAM GAME, VALLEY VIEW HIGH SCHOOL, PECKVILLE, PA. We never heard of this game or ever been to this high school stadium, but it’s only an hour from home for us. However, there is a reason for the above. Both Guy & Pam are Lehigh Valley natives. When we moved to the Pocono Mountains we continued to go south for our high school football, back to the Valley where we grew up. Once we decided to visit the home fields for all 47 District 11 teams, we mostly headed west to Schuylkill County for new territory. An hour to the north, the schools are in District 2 and that’s not our beat, other than when D11 schools play there in the state playoffs. But it sounded like a great game for a great cause. And who wouldn’t want to be able to say they were a part of a tradition that has lasted some 90 years?
We made the hour drive to Valley View. Since we weren’t sure about the directions, we left a bit early and it paid off with a great parking spot right by the entrance. Admission was $10 with another $5 for the event program.
The first order for us was dinner. Despite being only an hour from home, having traveled to every state and province and some 30+ countries, the menu was somewhat foreign for us. What the heck is a porketta? Why do they call cheesesteak stromboli pizza? And why do they call regular pizza red pizza? Aren’t they all red? Apparently not. Of course we tried them all and Guy in particular loved the porkettas, which turned out to be small, marinated sliced pork sandwiches. Delicious. If porkettas are District 2 stadium staples, we might have to abandon District 11 for District 2! Or at least go 50/50
Valley View has a nice stadium with plenty of seating on each side. We asked and learned that the game is annually held at this stadium, although it was held at Memorial Stadium in Scranton one year in the not-too-distant past.
The game was scheduled for a 7:00 kickoff. We were told by District 2 gurus that the City team lineup was stacked and that they were the odds on favorites. Amazingly, after 89 years of play, the overall series was tied at 42 with a few ties.
It was a real good game, with City scoring first. County then scored twice, followed by a City score. It was tied at 14 getting close to the half. But then County scored, and after an interception scored again in the final seconds of the half for a 28-14 lead.
A halftime highlight for us was meeting PA Football News colleagues Jared and Sherryl Samuel. The pair from Dallas are top reporters covering the Lackawanna Interscholastic Athletic Association games.
In the second half, City responded to cut it to one score, County increased their lead back to two scores, and City cut it again to one score. Midway through the fourth quarter, City got the ball back with a chance to tie. But they could not get it done, and County took this year’s Dream 35-28 to take the lead in the overall series 43-42.
It was a great event, and we wouldn’t hesitate to attend again in the future. Our concern is one we have been having more and more often about high school football in general, and that is the ever-increasing length of games. Twelve-minute quarter games are now sometimes lasting three hours or more, almost equal to the length of NFL games with 15-minute quarters and numerous TV timeouts. This should not be. On the way out of the stadium, we heard several people comment that the game runs too late on a worknight, and that they should start at 6:00 if it’s going to be that long.
SATURDAY, JULY 20. GEFA GAMES, SOUTHERN COLUMBIA HIGH SCHOOL, CATAWISSA, PA. New this year as part of the GEFA All-Star Game was the First Annual GEFA Games, eight different competitions between athletes from the league’s ten teams. The competitions were Fastest Man, Snapshots (long snapping), Tug of War, High Stakes (catch as many balls as possible without dropping any), Gridiron Relay (8 events in 1), Precision Passing, Best Catch, and Dodgeball.
The event description for the Gridiron Relay was as follows. Starting from the goal line the QB will throw a 10-yard pass, the person receiving the pass will then have to go thru the agility ladder, once they hand the ball off to the next person they will have to go thru a twenty-yard receiver Gauntlet where footballs will be thrown to them from each side, after that the next person will have to run thru the hurdles before the next person will have to use technique to go past 2 tackling bags then make the tackle for the next man to move on. The next person will have to do the Potato Sack, and ten-yard run until he gets to the tire flip. A ten-yard flip leading up to the kicker nailing a 25-yard field goal and then running to the goal line to stop the clock.
Guy was asked to be one of the “celebrity judges” for Best Catch, and got to sit next to one of the other judges, Jim Roth, the winningest high school head coach in PA history. With 499 wins, he only needs one more to become the first high school coach in PA with 500 wins, and the 5th in the country. It was a huge honor for me to sit next to Jim and chat.
G-Games winners were Anthony Maurent (Mustangs) Fastest Man, Andrew May (Buffaloes) Snap Shot, Valley Conference Tug of War, Larry Wingo (Comanche) High Stakes, Valley Conference Gridiron Relay, Ron James (Nightmare) Best Catch, Mountain Conference (Dodgeball). Valley Conference won the team title by a score of 25-14. Medals were awarded to everyone on the winning team.
GAME 21. SATURDAY JULY 21. GEFA ALL-STAR GAME. SOUTHERN COLUMBIA HIGH SCHOOL, CATAWISSA, PA. This was the 15th site to host a GEFA game this season, and we made it to 12 of them. Surprisingly, although we have seen Southern Columbia play many times, this was the first time we had ever been to their home stadium.
The All-Star game pitted the Mountain Conference against the Valley Conference. The Mountain Conference consisted of players from Bedford County Buffaloes, Indiana County Crusaders, Moshannon Valley Vikings, Somerset County Miners, and the Williamsport Wildcats. The other Mountain Conference team, the Monroeville Titans, folded during the season. The Valley Conference team was made up of players from the Berks County Raptors, Coal County Nightmare, Dauphin County Comanche, Hazleton Mustangs, and Wilkes-Barre Warriors.
The GEFA Games were at 1:00, with the football game at 4:00 making for a long day. Making it even more of a challenge was that the advertised food truck didn’t show up. The word was they went to Kutztown instead of Catawissa. Guy & Pam always try to support worthy events by patronizing the refreshment stand. That came back to bite us on this day because we didn’t eat anything before arriving at the stadium. To the rescue came local friend Anita Wasileski, who stopped to pick up a bag of pretzels, granola bars, and chocolate chip cookies for us, then paid the game admission just to deliver them so that we didn’t sit there with nothing to eat for over six hours.
The two teams in the championship game were both from the Mountain Conference, so they had to be the favorites. This was not anything like an NFL all-star game. There didn’t seem to be any rule tweaks, and everyone on the field was playing hard and hitting like it was a playoff game. Valley came out strong and did hold the lead at the end of the quarter. But Mountain capitalized on two huge mistakes that led to a pick six and a safety on the final two plays of the half, and opened up a 30-14 halftime lead.
Valley had a few second half chances to close the gap, but never seemed to be able to get over the hump and the final score was 70-44. It was another 12-minute quarter, three-hour elapsed time game.
During the 3rd quarter, GEFA President James Simerson handed me the All-Star Game MVP trophy and asked if I would present it to the winner after the game. I said sure, just tell me who to ask to find out who was the winner. “You pick,” he said. ACK! Thankfully, it was a no brainer as Greg “The Great 8” Medina had another amazing game.
This was the fourth straight GEFA game for us seeing Medina at QB. Our Moshannon Valley visit was the second last week of the regular season for the showdown of unbeatens vs. the Buffaloes. Then the next week we visited the Indiana County Crusaders and the Vikings were the visiting team. After skipping the two playoff rounds, we saw Medina and the Vikes in the Keystone Bowl, and finally the All-Star game. He is a joy to watch play the game.
Medina was the MVP of both the Keystone Bowl and the All-Star Game. He has won the All-Star MVP playing for both the Valley and Mountain Conferences. During his GEFA career, he has been named top quarterback, top offensive player, overall league MVP, and won team championships. Most importantly, he was the player who wouldn’t make Guy look short in the trophy presentation photograph together. Just kidding on that last one.
The GEFA Games were a nice addition to the day, and allowed players from all the different teams to hang together in a much more relaxed atmosphere. Thus ends the 20th GEFA on-field season, which began back in March at the Kickoff Classic. Feedback Welcome: rtryfbar@aol.com.
GUY & PAM 2024 SPRING/SUMMER FOOTBALL SCORECARD (21 Games)
GEFA: Kickoff Classic (Central Columbia High School, 3 Games)
GEFA: Bedford County Buffaloes (Claysburg-Kimmel High School)
GEFA: Dauphin County Comanche (Koons Park, Linglestown)
GEFA: Berks County Raptors (Exeter Township High School)
GEFA: Hazleton Mustangs (Gene Della Croce Memorial Field)
GEFA: Wilkes-Barre Warriors (Exeter Panther Junior Football Assoc. Field)
GEFA: Coal County Nightmare (St. Clair Veteran’s Memorial Stadium)
GEFA: Williamsport Wildcats (Roundhouse Field)
GEFA: Moshannon Valley Vikings (Phillipsburg-Osceola Area High School “Old Stadium”)
GEFA: Indiana County Crusaders (Indiana Area High School)
GEFA: Keystone Bowl Championship (Kutztown University)
GEFA: All Star Game (Southern Columbia High School)
AIF Arena Football: Harrisburg Stampede (PA Farm Show Complex)
WFA Women’s Football—Harrisburg Havoc (Palmyra High School)
High School: Schuylkill / Colonial All Star Game (North Schuylkill High School)
High School: PSFCA Small School All Star Game (Cumberland Valley High School)
High School: PSFCA Big School All Star Game (Cumberland Valley High School)
High School: PSFCA Big 33 (Cumberland Valley High School)
High School: Scranton Lions City vs. County Dream Game (Valley View High School)
Missed. GEFA: Somerset County Miners, Monroeville Titans (team folded), Bedford County Buffaloes (played one game at alternate home field in Everett). WFA: Harrisburg Havoc @ McCaskey High School (last minute site change).
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