Compared to last week, preparing for tonight's District 4 Class A championship game has been easy for Southern Columbia.
Not that Line Mountain isn't every bit as good as Bloomsburg; the 8-3 Eagles are the top-seeded team in the tournament. But from Southern coach Jim Roth's point of view, he's got a leg up on tonight's game just because he actually has had most of his team available this week.
The flu big bit the Tigers hard last week, going through not just the football team, but the whole school, and although Southern was at close to full strength for its 28-6 win over Bloomsburg, at least seven or eight starters were playing with at least a hint of illness still in them, according to Roth.
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MOUNT CARMEL - A championship is a championship, and playing for one carries hightened excitement.
That excitement, along with a home crowd at the Silver Bowl, will fuel Mount Carmel Area when Hanover Area, visits tonight for the Eastern Conference Class AA championship.
It's a matchup of 6-5 teams that hope to close the year with a win to thrust them into offseason workouts.
Hanover Area suffered a four-game losing streak in the middle of the season that rivaled Mount Carmel's three-game skid to end the season.
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Line Mountain's Mike Carson has been coaching football a long time, and knows a good football team when he sees one.
And contrary to what some people were saying earlier in the season, Southern Columbia is a good football team, Carson says.
Carson's Eagles (8-3) host the Tigers (7-4) in the District 4 Class A championship game tonight, pitting the area schools against each other in the playoffs for the fourth straight year. Southern won the title game 49-31 in 2006, and 37-14 last season, and Line Mountain knocked Southern out in the semifinals, 22-17 in 2007.
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: NIsports
