Mid Season Review: What’s going on in District 4?

Tagged under: District 4, Gameday Hub, News

Billy Splain | September 26, 2019

Let’s take a look at District 4 after five games have been played:

Ok, where should we start?  Just kidding, have you heard?  Southern Columbia is a good team.  With four players committed to Big Ten teams (Garcia/Haladay-Michigan, Zachman-Wisconsin, Fleming-OSU) and Max Tillett being courted by several D1 schools, this edition of the Tigers is probably the best Tiger team in history.  They’re outscoring opponents 284 – 0.  They are the only PA team that hasn’t given up a point.  Twice they’ve had teams notify them they don’t want to play so they worked their magic and added Montoursville and Wyoming Area to their schedule.  Are they tested?  Well, they went to Hammond SC and destroyed that team on national tv. Sent two pretty good teams in Mt Carmel and Central Columbia packing. The finishing drive is interesting for them. S Williamsport and Danville are at 4-1 while Wyoming Area and Montoursville are both 5-0.  Will that regular season streak continue? …..

Williamsport is the stand alone 6A team and just suffered a crushing last minute loss to Crestwood.  Their last three games have been decided by 7, 6 and 1 point going 2 and 3 in that stretch. Their schedule is favorable for the team with the most popular name in the state. Del Val will be a challenge in the 8th week of the season but it’s at home so…..

OK, let’s visit the Heartland for a bit:

In Division 1, Jersey Shore is having a “can’t figure you out” year. They opened with a crushing win over a strong Bellefonte team, then both Montoursville and MCA beat them. Tough to gage the Bulldogs but they do have a bright spot. Tanner Lorson has thrown for 1,035 yard and 11 tds.  Max Moyers is having a productive year for Lewisburg running for 590 yards, but Coach Persing’s 3-2 Dragons are another team to get a handle on. Selinsgrove and Shamokin are sitting at 3 and 4 in the standings at 2-3.

Division 2 has a nice battle going on and it’s the last time we’ll see these three teams battling (more in a bit). Montoursville is leading the pack at 5-0 and have dispatched of their opponents quite easily. The second half of the season won’t be so kind as they face Danville, Mifflinburg and SCA to close out the season. Can they “hold the rope”? We mentioned Danville there. Cudos to the Ironmen who’ve had to endure parental politics and lost their coach this season.  Kayden Riley leads D4 in passing with 1,074 yards and 13 TDs. The Ironmen are strong, but we’ll see how strong when they face Montoursville and SCA.  Right there with them is Mighty Mifflinburg at 4-1!! The Cats are playing with their hearts on their sleeves as this is the last year for Coach Jason Dressler’s Wildcats. They’ll merge with Upper Dauphin next year so I’m sure they want to leave an impression. They have a schedule full of landmines and will need all nine lives to survive MCA/Sock/Mtvl/CM and Lewisburg.

Division 3. SCA can take control with a win over the 4-1 Mounties this week. Bloomsburg, MCA and Central are all battling for the second spot with them. The Red Tornadoes lost a heartbreaker last week to North Schuylkill after leading at halftime. John Darrah has the MCA confidence up a notch over recent years, we’ll just have to see if he can convert it to wins.

Head north they said. So, Let’s talk NTL:

There’s a storm a brewin in the large school division. A storm called CantonTroy.  The Trojans have one blemish on their record, a 7 point loss to Bald Eagle Area. Coach Jesse Nagle said “I don’t think we’ll see a bigger, better line than theirs all year. That’s a good team” on our show The State of PA Football.  Canton sits at the top at 5-0 but really hasn’t faced a quality opponent, yet. They’re about to enter a stretch that includes 4-1 teams Sayre, Wellsboro and the big one to finish the regular season with Troy. Uriah Ballie has 786 yards passing (1,621/17tds total leading the district) and has found the endzone 11 times. Big Ben Knapp is third in the district for Canton with 21 receptions for 442 yards.  Speaking of Wellsboro, Aiden Hauser is re-writing the record books. His 1,038 yards and 16 tds lead the district and he’s poised to hit 2,000 yards this year. At 4-1 the Hornets are definitely a player but that week 2 loss to Troy could “sting” them. Canton is looming in the future.

In the small school division Muncy and Sayre lead the way. Bailey Hadzinikolov and Ethan Gush lead the league in defense with 61 and 57 tackles respectively. The Indians are 3-0 in the conference and have a key game with Sayre in week 9, but first up for them is Canton this week. Sayre’s only loss came to Troy, a 36-14 setback. Quarterback Brayden Horton leads the way with 900 yards in the air and 12 tds. Corbin Brown and Ethan Miller are his main targets. The two have combined for over 500 yards and 8 tds. Col-Mont VT is a surprising third in the division at 2-3 overall. One team that is lagging but could make some second half noise is an improving Montgomery. They battled with Sayre and got a nice win over CMVT after thumpings to Wellsboro and Canton.

That’s your district 4 mid season report!  Good luck to all teams the rest of the season!

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