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Southern Columbia, until this year, was a Class A football school. You’ve probably heard of the tiny school from Catawissa, outside Bloomsburg, because it has appeared in the state championship football game 13 times, winning six of those.
The relevance?
Southern Columbia has beaten any number of teams in larger classifications – solid programs that were state contenders in their own classifications.
Still missing the point? How about this: Who says Mifflin County’s shift within the Mid-Penn Conference is a demotion?
Since the school learned Monday that the league had approved the realignment proposed by one of its committees, making changes it felt would benefit the league as well as the schools involved, there’s been an awful lot of chatter on social media attacking the move.
I keep hearing about how the Commonwealth Division is the be all and end all of high school football, but here’s something even I didn’t know: Commonwealth Division schools have won only two PIAA football titles since 1988, when the tournament was first held, and those were 20 years apart.
Cumberland Valley was the first, winning the 1992 Class AAAA game over Upper St. Clair. In 2011, Central Dauphin beat North Penn. There hasn’t even been a third appearance by the Commonwealth Division in the big game. In fact, the only other Commonwealth team that’s been to a state final wasn’t even in the Mid-Penn when it happened – State College lost the 2009 game to La Salle College.
Who are the big winners for the Mid-Penn in state football? Small schools, that’s who.
How about Steelton-Highspire, which won back-to-back Class A titles in 2007 and 2008. Camp Hill won the state’s inaugural Class A title, in 1988. Bishop McDevitt was the Class AA champ in 1995, and was the runner-up in Class AAA in 2010, 2011 and 2013 (no wonder the Keystone schools want to see McDevitt in the Commonwealth).
If it seems like the Commonwealth Division schools are always hanging around in the state tournament, just look at the bracket. District 3’s tournament is included in the first two rounds of state play in Class AAAA, guaranteeing a semifinal berth – a third of the 29 schools in the classification are Mid-Penn schools, and most of those play out of the Commonwealth.
The insults heaped on the mostly smaller Colonial Division schools – I notice no one’s even a bit worried about the soccer move to the Keystone – are troublesome because it assumes they can not be competitive with Mifflin County. Who says it won’t be the other way around?
Comments online accuse kids of being lazy and uninterested. Of not trying, or not caring. One person suggested the players need to make football their No. 1 priority in high school. Funny, I thought education was supposed to be in that spot.
A few folks ramble on about the impressive overall record Mifflin County has had in four years of existence, apparently forgetting that one of those years was against Mountain League opponents – and it’s questionable whether most of them could hold their own against even the smallest (by population) Mid-Penn division.
The Huskies’ Mid-Penn record stands at 3-18, and the scores have not always been razor close. In the season the Huskies went to the state tournament, they still finished the season with a sub-.500 record, and after two district wins were 6-6.
The people of Mifflin County sometimes have a reputation of negativity, and the response to this decision fuels that belief. What the team needs now is the support of the community – and a chance to succeed or fail on its own.
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Jeff Fishbein is sports editor of The Sentinel. Contact him at jfishbein@lewistownsentinel.com.