Previewing Friday night’s high school football matchups

Six high school football games are on tap Friday — and several provide unique matchups.

State College has been on an incredible roll on offense, and it’ll look to continue that against Mechanicsburg. Tyrone and Bellefonte should battle it out in a close contest, and Bald Eagle Area will look to rebound from a tough loss last week against Central this week.

Penns Valley, Philipsburg-Osceola and St. Joseph’s are all also hoping to put an end to their respective losing streaks.

Here’s a closer look at all the Friday matchups:

State College (3-0) at Mechanicsburg (2-1)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: SC — Matt Lintal (fourth season); M — Billy Furman (first season)

Last meeting: State College 55-0, last season

Players to watch: SC — Tommy Friberg, QB; M — Keegan Neill, RB

The skinny: The Little Lions boast the obvious advantage in talent here, as the team has scored 45, 55 and 56 points — and has triggered the mercy rule in every game.

State College has done a tremendous job spreading the ball around, as it’s been virtually impossible for defenses to focus on any individual. But, all that being said, this shouldn’t quite be the pushover Mechanicsburg team that fans have seen the last two years.

Mechanicsburg’s new coach, Furman, spent several years with Al Golden at both Temple and Miami (Fla.) And, despite the Wildcats going winless in both 2015 and 2016, Mechanicsburg already has two wins — although, granted, it’s over two programs with a combined one win.

That’s not to say the mercy rule won’t be triggered again this game. But it seems Mechanicsburg is on the rise, at least a bit.

Central (3-1) at Bald Eagle Area (3-1)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: C — Dave Baker; BEA — Jesse Nagle (second season)

Last meeting: Central 50-0, last season

Players to watch: C — Trystan Detwiler, RB; BEA — Jaden Jones, QB

The skinny: The Eagles are coming off their first loss of the season, when they watched a 7-6 halftime deficit against Chestnut Ridge balloon to a 43-6 lopsided defeat. This game ought to test their resiliency.

But, after giving up 367 yards rushing last week, BEA won’t catch a break by hosting run-happy Central. The Scarlet Dragons racked up nearly 400 yards on the ground in a 51-8 win over Penns Valley last week.

The Eagles will be forced to contain Central’s Detwiler, who averaged 13.2 yards per carry in last week’s win. He finished with 185 yards on 14 carries and tallied three scores.

Should BEA get behind, it will rely on the arm of Jones — who has 571 yards passing through four games and had his highest total last week with 199 yards through the air.

Tyrone (1-3) at Bellefonte (3-1)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: T — Jason Wilson; Bel — Shanon Manning (fifth season)

Last meeting: Bellefonte 14-13, last season

Players to watch: T — Parker Mitchell, WR/CB; Bel — Cade Fortney, WR

The skinny: The Red Raiders enter Friday’s game on a two-game win streak. Last week, they had to put in some extra work for their win — by topping Central Mountain 34-31 in four overtimes, in a contest that lasted 3  1/2 hours.

The Golden Eagles enter with probably one of their worst records in a long time this early in a year. Now, that mark is a bit misleading as their three losses have come against Huntingdon, Central and Bellwood-Antis, who are a combined 11-1 this year. Tyrone took out its frustrations on Philipsburg-Osceola in a 42-21 win last week.

Bellefonte’s Fortney has been on a roll and doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon. He has scored in each of the Red Raiders last three games. After scoring three receiving touchdowns against Philipsburg-Osceola two weeks ago, Fortney found the end zone on the ground against the Wildcats.

The Golden Eagles’ Mitchell will more than likely be in charge of keeping Fortney under a blanket and limiting his chances. However, he is just a big of a threat as his counterpart. Mitchell is by the far the leading receiver for Tyrone with 19 receptions for 314 yards, as the next closest player has six receptions for 55 yards.

Penns Valley (1-3) at Huntingdon (4-0)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: PV — Martin Tobias (22nd season); H — Michael Hudy

Last meeting: Huntingdon 55-27, last season

Players to watch: PV — Ryan Ripka, RB; H — Ian Border, RB

The skinny: This game could be over quickly in two different manners.

In one way, both teams run the ball — a lot — so the clock will continuously run. The other way, the mercy rule could go into effect to start the second half much like in the Rams’ 51-8 loss last Friday to Central.

Still, even though Penns Valley trailed 42-0, it didn’t just roll over and go away. Ripka ripped off a 65-yard rushing score and, in Tobias’ words, “showed what he is capable of when teams can’t bottle him up.” Ripka leads his team with 174 yards rushing but has carried the ball 49 times for a 3.6 average.

On the other side of the field, Border hasn’t had any problems gaining yards on the ground. In last week’s 45-27 win over Clearfield, the 6-foot, 210-pound senior running back had 277 yards rushing on 24 carries. He has accumulated 663 yards on the season.

Chestnut Ridge (3-1) at Philipsburg-Osceola (1-3)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: CR — Max Shoemaker; P-O — Mike Mann (second season)

Last meeting: Chestnut Ridge 42-0, last season

Players to watch: CR — Logan Hauck, QB; P-O — Daniel Slogosky, QB

The skinny: Chestnut Ridge has triggered the mercy rule twice in their three wins; Philipsburg-Osceola has had the opponent trigger the mercy rule on it in each of its three losses.

The Mounties haven’t given up in their three straight losses; they scored three second-half touchdowns last week after trailing 42-0 to Tyrone at halftime. But, for them to have any kind of chance to keep it close against Chestnut Ridge, they’ll have to limit Hauck.

Chestnut Ridge’s dual-threat has thrown for 408 yards and rushed for another 424. He has 10 total touchdowns so far this season. P-O has shown explosiveness at times, but it should be in for another difficult challenge that has the potential to get out of hand.

St. Joseph’s (0-3) at Bucktail (2-2)

Time: 7 p.m.

Coaches: SJCA — Murray Fetzer (first season); B — Bruce Ransom

Last meeting: Bucktail 12-0, earlier this season (Aug. 25)

Players to watch: SJCA — Brendan Robinson, QB; B — Gage Sutliff, RB

The skinny: This could be the Wolves’ best shot at a win this season.

Sure, Bucktail came away with the victory in the first meeting earlier this season. But St. Joseph’s quarterback Brendan Robinson suffered a head injury within the first 15 minutes of the game and never returned. With limited depth, SJCA wasn’t prepared to play the game without him.

With Robinson back under center, this meeting is sure to be a little different. In limited time, Bucktail’s defense showed some trouble stopping St. Joseph’s passing game. And this is a pretty evenly matched game: The Class A schools have similar enrollments, with SJCA listed at 44 and Bucktail listed at 43 for the 2017 season.

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 12:15 AM with the headline "Previewing Friday night’s high school football matchups."