It’s been more than a decade since CD East played the first month of a season without a loss. That last time the Panthers were 4-0 was 2011 and that squad hit the home stretch wall.
That is what head coach Lance Dean and his troops will look to avoid this time around with the heaving lifting part of its schedule on deck the final half of the season.
CD East has enough talent at the skill positions offensively to compete. The question will be consistency. In Week 4 the Panthers had an up-and-down outing against winless Carlisle. The Herd made this a game in the third quarter and forced CD East to respond.
Coming off a thrilling win over Cedar Cliff the week prior, playing Carlisle was an ideal opponent for the Panthers because it allowed them to win ugly and not lose any momentum.
There is no reason for CD East not to reach 5-0 with winless Altoona on deck. Whether this group wins six or seven games will be the question. After Altoona, the Panthers face Cumberland Valley followed by rival Central Dauphin. Those are toss-up games.
An invite to the second season will hinge on the results of those two games. And it would not be a surprise if CD East was 7-0 heading into the brutal stretch run where the Panthers play Commonwealth heavy hitters State College, Bishop McDevitt, and Harrisburg in succession.
The first job is to obtain win No. 5 next week and set yourself up to be in the best possible position for what lies ahead.
CATS ARE GOING WILD ON DEFENSE
Pretty clear, at least from my chair, what first-year head coach Dave Heckard made as the top priority when he took over a Mechanicsburg program that was 5-5 a year ago.
The undefeated Wildcats had some talent in the shed to work with, but to win more than five games you can’t allow more points than you score. Surrendering 26 points a game isn’t abjectly bad defense, but five wins is about the most you are going to get allowing nearly four touchdowns a game.
If you remember Heckard as a high school and college player, he kept it pretty simple overall as a linebacker but was ridiculously fundamentally sound in how he went about his business.
After shutting out Lower Dauphin this past Friday, the Wildcats have now surrendered only 26 points through 16 quarters. The Falcons came in the Week 4 Keystone Division contest averaging 20 points a game.
Don’t get me wrong, Mechanicsburg is having no problem putting points up on the board. And 29 against Lower Dauphin is exactly the right number required to create success.
When the other team can’t make it to double digits, that’s a difference-maker.
MUSTANGS SEND A MESSAGE
Head coach Bob Boden and his staff knew. Now the rest of us are in on the secret – West Perry is not taking a step back in any way, shape, or form in 2024 despite heavy losses to graduation.
Welcoming fellow unbeaten Susquehanna Township to Elliottsburg for the Game of the Week, the Mustangs proceeded to steamroll the Tribe in every phase to complete a perfect first month of the season for the fourth consecutive year.
Susquehanna Township has some depth when it comes to weapons, but on this night the best weapon in the West Perry arsenal, Brad Hockenberry, went off and the Indians had no response.
Hockenberry accounted for 270 total yards (158 rushing, 112 receiving) and had the ball in his hands 34 of West Perry’s 55 snaps. That’s carrying the water up the hill for an offense, folks.
A sneaky key to the Mustangs’ triumph was a defense that surrendered fewer than 300 total yards and only two touchdowns.
West Perry is THE team to beat in the new look Colonial Division.
FROM THE ASHES TRINITY RISES UP
Nobody dealt with more offseason turmoil than Trinity. It’s a well-documented time of change in Shiremanstown that covered any and all bases from graduation to transfers to coaching staff turnover.
Here we are a month into navigating the change waters for this program and all Trinity has done is win three straight to post an impressive 3-1 first month that includes scoring 120 points over the last 12 quarters.
Long-time assistant coach and now interim head coach Kevin Yarnevich, his assistants and his players still have a ton of work to do, they will tell you. Hopefully they take a moment and pause to reflect for a brief moment on what they have accomplished.
The T-Rocks are, in my book, the biggest surprise in 2024 at this moment. And based on their performance and looking at their schedule ahead, seven wins is a real possibility.
