This past Friday marked the end of inter-division play in District 9 football as the division winners of the inaugural season of the District 9 Football League put a bow on their regular seasons.

Despite suffering their first loss of the year to Brookville, the Ridgway Elkers had already clinched the Large School Division crown.

In the Small School ranks, Smethport capped a perfect 9-0 regular season with an instant-classic 21-20 victory over Coudersport to win the North Division title. Elk County Catholic, meanwhile, clinched first place in the South Division with an easy 36-6 win over Keystone.

But while the division races are over, there will still be plenty of regular season action this Friday across D-9. Every Large School team except Kane will be playing a 10th game, while half of the 12 Small School teams will also be in action for non-league games to end the regular season.

With the playoffs only a week away, now seems like a good time to reflect on some of the top storylines both past and future.

D-9 League Year 1 a success

Coming into the 2018 season, there was an understandable amount of mystery surrounding what the first year of the new D-9 Football League would look like.

With many schools playing significantly different schedules than last year, not to mention the lack of any obvious preseason favorite in any division, there was no shortage of possible outcomes.

More than two months later, it’s safe to say that the 2018 season went about as well as anyone could have hoped.

Sure, there were still plenty of lopsided final scores, which was one of the biggest complaints directed at the old Allegheny Mountain League. But the competitive balance was much more noticeable than in years past. In the new setup, you truly earned your final record, good or bad; who knows if Smethport, as fantastic as the Hubbers have been this year, would have gone unbeaten under the old format.

The top half of the Large School Division provided endless intrigue, as Bradford, Brockway, Brookville, and Clarion were all so closely lumped together that the weekly power rankings became a real chore. Even Ridgway came back to the pack a bit with its loss to the Raiders on Friday.

Meanwhile, Smethport’s pursuit of a perfect season and the first North Division title culminated in a perfect storm of drama with the Hubbers’ remarkable comeback victory against Coudersport.

If that’s the type of excitement we get at the end of every season, count me in for more.

Preseason picks hit or miss

The unpredictability of this season makes it especially interesting to look back at the pre-season predictions of the so-called “experts.”

Every year, we here at the Era — along with our colleagues at the Olean Times-Herald — take our best guess at how each team will fare in the coming season. Sports predictions of any kind are usually a fool’s errand, and that was true once again in 2018.

Strangely enough, one of the teams we were dead on about were the Bradford Owls. We predicted the Owls to go 6-3 in division play, and that’s exactly how things turned out.

We also correctly predicted the divisional records of Coudersport (4-1) and Port Allegany (2-3), and were within one game of St. Marys (1-8 predicted, 0-9 actual), Otto-Eldred (4-1 predicted, 3-2 actual), and Cameron County (0-5 predicted, 1-4 actual).

There were plenty of mistakes, however. We severely underestimated Ridgway (4-5 predicted, 8-1 actual), Smethport (3-2 predicted, 5-0 actual), and Elk Catholic (2-3 predicted, 4-1 actual), and drastically overestimated Kane (6-3 predicted, 2-7 actual).

But hey, where’s the fun in being right all the time?

Challenges ahead for Owls

Bradford will wrap up its 2018 regular season on Friday at Parkway Field against old foe Oil City. While they are guaranteed a matchup with Bellefonte in the Class AAAA playoffs, the Owls still have an outside shot at a home playoff game if they were to win and Bellefonte were to lose to Bald Eagle on Friday.

In any case, the Owls should feel proud of their 2018 campaign, especially with how well they’ve played during their current four-game winning streak.

But there is probably also the feeling that there were some opportunities left on the table.

The season-opening 69-60 shootout loss to Brookville was there for the taking if the Owls’ defense had come up with a stop or two. The game that Bradford would really like to have back, though, is the 12-7 loss to Moniteau on the road.

For as poorly as the Owls played in that contest, they still looked like the better team. But a few costly plays down the stretch on both sides of the ball led to Bradford losing a game it certainly should have won.

But that loss seems to have served as a turning point in the Owls’ season, as they haven’t lost a game since.

How local teams stack up state-wide

The website MaxPreps keeps track of facts and figures for nearly every school around the country, along with providing rankings by state, class, and district. These rankings should usually be taken with a grain of salt since they are compiled from afar and without first-hand experience for most teams.

Still, it’s always interesting to see where local programs stack up against those from across the state.

A pair of D-9 teams occupy the last two spots in the Class A top 25, with Smethport sitting at number 24 and Clarion-Limestone at number 25.

Ridgway is the top-ranked AA school in the area, as the Elkers fell to number 22 in the state after their first loss of the season.

Bradford, meanwhile, is ranked number 43 among Class AAAA schools.