Going into Week 5 of the 2014 high school football season, Blue Mountain was 2-2 and facing a tough Marian team on the road.
Pine Grove was also 2-2 and just eked out a three-point win over Susquenita.
Tri-Valley was 1-3 with Line Mountain and Juniata ahead of it.
None of them panicked. Tonight, all three will play for Eastern Conference championships.
Blue Mountain (9-2) won a 17-14 thriller over Marian and never looked back, winning its last six games in the regular season before beating Wilkes-Barre Coughlin 35-21 in the EC Class AAA semifinals last Friday.
The Eagles host Fleetwood (7-4), third-place finisher in the deep Berks League Section II, at the Eagles’ Nest tonight for the title.
“Our first two losses were to Lehighton and North Schuylkill, to two pretty darn good football teams,” Blue Mountain coach Cory Mabry said. “The kids just stayed on task, plugged along and did what they had to do.”
The Eagles’ swarming defense allowed just 12 points in the three weeks following the Marian win, while Sean Greenawalt, Will Horn, Dakota Roberts, Lucas Forbes, Christian Gosch and the offense put up 96 points.
Greenawalt didn’t play the second half of last week’s win, but is expected to play tonight.
Blue Mountain is appearing in the Eastern Conference finals for the fourth time, but is still searching for its first title. The Eagles lost in the championship game in 1985 (Crestwood), 1995 (Bethlehem Catholic) and 2006 (East Stroudsburg North).
Fleetwood uses three different backs in its running attack — Tyler Emge (233 carries for 1,826 yards), quarterback Zach Koenig (64-435) and Thaddeus Cornick (33-236).
Koenig is by no means a one-dimensional QB. He’s completed 113-of-213 for 2,131 yards. And he has a range of targets: Michael Allen (40 receptions for 806 yards), Tyler Strunk (33-579) and Sampson Lerch (27-540).
“Our objective is pretty simple — mix it up a little bit, not give them the same look two downs in a row and try to keep them guessing,” Mabry said.
“The type of football we’ve been playing defensively has been just slide to the football and be very physical. We do that, we can hopefully control the front.”
Pine Grove (6-5) punched its ticket to the Eastern Conference Class AA final with a 17-7 win over top-seeded Hanover on Sunday after a power failure suspended the game last Friday night.
Tonight, Pine Grove travels to third-seeded Northern Lehigh (6-5) for the championship.
The Cardinals’ road to the title game was more rocky than Blue Mountain’s, mainly because of the unpredictable nature of the Tri-Valley League this season.
Pine Grove beat Millersburg 26-19 following the Susquenita victory, the team’s only back-to-back wins during the regular season, and finished out the year 3-3.
The Cardinals haven’t enjoyed much postseason success during their history, save for an Eastern Conference Class AA title in 2010 against Wyoming Area.
Pine Grove has primarily the Colonial League to thank for that. The Cards lost to Salisbury in the 2006 EC final and were knocked out of the District 11 Class AA playoffs last season by Palisades after Pine Grove went undefeated.
Northern Lehigh placed fourth in the Colonial League West Division this year behind Northwestern Lehigh, Southern Lehigh and Palmerton. The Bulldogs beat Western Wayne 49-41 in last Friday’s other semifinal.
Tri-Valley (6-5) has had better luck against its Eastern Conference Class A championship opponent.
The Dawgs play Millersburg (6-5) tonight, 11 weeks after defeating the Indians 31-14 in the season opener.
Tri-Valley dropped three straight games after that win, but bounced back by topping Line Mountain, upsetting Tri-Valley League title contender Juniata and pounding Halifax.
But the Bulldogs know Millersburg is a different animal than it was in Week 1.
The Indians have won three straight by a combined score of 124-59. Sophomore quarterback Christian Wingard has thrown for 1,700-plus yards and ran for 500 more.
“They’ve been putting up a lot of points the last couple games, which is a concern,” Tri-Valley coach Mike Ulicny said. “But it’s a championship game, you’re not playing any slouches. Our defense has been doing pretty good so we’ll see what they can do.”
The Dawgs have their own dual-threat QB in Hunter Harner. He has solid receiving options in Jaden Buchanan and Tyler Lucas and can always rely on running back Anthony Snyder.
Of the three teams going for Eastern Conference titles tonight, Tri-Valley has seen the most success. The Bulldogs have appeared in 11 EC playoffs, winning crowns in 1985, ’88, ’90 and 2008.