In last week’s column, I expressed the opinion that it would prove interesting to be ‘a fly on the wall’ in those locker rooms of the upcoming opponents on Southern Columbia’s remaining 2019 schedule. The statement was a part of my question as to what does a coach say to his team in the practice sessions leading up to a game against powerful Southern Columbia. Indeed, the Tigers may be hard to tame; most likely an impossible task. During their first five games of this season, Southern Columbia has outscored their opponents by an utterly dominating 282-0 margin.

South Williamsport felt the bite last week and its Jersey Shore’s turn this Friday night while Montoursville gets its crack at the Columbia County wrecking machine on October 18. But thanks to the Southern Columbia coach himself week eight opponent Shikellamy won’t have to worry about what words its coach may say; they’ve been spared.

As Southern Columbia coach Jim Roth was contemplating his team’s schedule after a 62-0 pasting of Shamokin in week four, he realized his Tigers needed a more difficult challenge later in the season. His team had already made two tweaks to their 2019 schedule. First, they dropped neighboring Bloomsburg for an opportunity to travel to South Carolina for a televised game with defending state champion Hammond, whom they routinely dismissed 36-0 (their slimmest margin of victory this year). Then they dropped Hughesville in week nine to pick up the game with Montoursville.

As Roth panned over schedules of other area schools, he noticed that Wyoming Area was scheduled to play Holy Redeemer on the same date the Tigers were to meet Shikellamy. On paper, neither of those two games would be competitive as both Southern and Wyoming Area were undefeated, while Holy Redeemer and Shikellamy were winless. So Roth, who is also S.C.’s athletic director, picked up the phone and made a few calls.

His first was to Wyoming Area’s athletic director, Joe Pigano, who thought the game, “Is the type of game that no one will ever play in. One that will be that big in the next 20 years,” and quickly agreed. Follow-up calls to Holy Redeemer and Shikellamy received favorable agreement, and the four schools proceeded to make the arrangements to switch opponents.

Both District 2 and District 4 and the PIAA had to approve the schedule switch. That approval was quickly granted, and the games became a reality.

Under the old PIAA state point system, the Wyoming Area and Southern Columbia would have benefited by playing the scheduled games in week 8. But the recently introduced Power Rating System now factors in the strength of the opponents and makes matchups like this one possible because the loser could actually end up with a higher power ranking than it might have had if they had beaten a winless opponent.

“Besides the football part of it, our kids are super excited to play the game,” athletic director Pigano told the Citizens Voice newspaper. “The community is excited, and the coaches are excited. This is what you hope for that comes out of a great season when you have two teams that are highly ranked (Wyoming Area was ranked fourth in the state in the most recent poll). Southern Columbia, according to everyone around including myself, says it’s the best high school team they have ever seen play with that many great players on the field at the same time.

“We look at it as, ‘let’s go after it. Let’s see how we can compete with one of the top teams in the state if we think we can make a run.’ It’s going to be a great atmosphere.”

The Warriors’ head coach Randy Spiers is in agreement with his athletic director. “It’s a great opportunity for our kids to play one of the top programs in the state and actually nationally,” he told the Wilkes-Barre media. “When we told our players the news, they were excited.”

Southern Columbia will travel to Wyoming Area for the game, leaving them with only four home games during the regular season. At press time it had not been determined where the Holy Redeemer/Shikellamy game would be played. But wherever it may be the two schools should be exhaling a big sigh of relief. While the Braves are winless, this season Holy Redeemer has lost 16 consecutive outings.

Todd Tilford, Shikellamy coach, used his best ‘coach speak’ when discussing the schedule switch.

“We were planning to go out to Southern Columbia and compete in week eight the best we could. Our team continues to practice hard and work to improve. The kids love the game of football and will be excited to represent our community against Holy Redeemer.”

Give Jim Roth some credit, beating opponents by an average score of 56-0 doesn’t do his Tigers, their overmatched opponents, or the fans a bit of good. We’ve yet to see what will happen when the schoolboy dynasty takes on Jersey Shore, Wyoming Area, Montoursville, and Danville as the season wears on, but one thing is for sure — Shikellamy won’t have to worry about it.

We all get way too many unwanted sales calls these days, but if Jim Roth is calling and you are scheduled to play Southern Columbia, it may be a good idea to pick up the phone.