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By John Hartsock
jhartsock@altoonamirror.com
Northern Bedford opened its football season last Friday night with a 50-7 Inter-County Conference rout of Southern Huntingdon, but there was a very high price to pay for the Black Panthers.
In a game in which several players on both teams sustained serious injuries, the Black Panthers saw two-way senior starters Adam Johnson, Ashton Detterline and Rece Dibert all sidelined before play was halted by the agreement of both head coaches with 38 seconds left in the second quarter.
All three Northern Bedford players will miss Friday night's home opener for the Black Panthers, a 7 p.m. ICC kickoff against neighboring rival Claysburg-Kimmel at Panther Community Stadium.
Johnson, Detterline and Dibert are all starting linebackers, while Johnson is a star running back, Detterline is a valuable fullback, and Dibert is a capable wide receiver.
The gravity of the situation is not lost on Northern Bedford coach Garry Black, whose team will go into improvisation mode this Friday night.
"We're essentially losing six starters -- three guys who start on both sides of the ball for us, and who are seniors and leaders on this team,'' Black said. "To have to deal with that is a lot, but we have some depth, and we like the guys who will be coming in to replace those players.
"We're going to be losing the senior leadership and the skills and talents of those three injured players, but we're going to try to do our best to fill in those holes and to do whatever we have to do to win on Friday.''
Last week's events made for a very tough way for both Northern Bedford and Southern Huntingdon to open their seasons. Southern Huntingdon sustained several injuries, including two that necessitated starting players Aiden McFadden and Connor Whitsel to be carried off the field on stretchers and transported away in an ambulance.
McFadden and Whitsel were both hospitalized because of their injuries last weekend, but both players were released from the hospital on Monday.
Black said that the long-term status of Johnson, Detterline, and Dibert is undecided at this point, pending results of medical tests.
"There are some things that we have to wait on, to see what the results of the tests are, and to see what is going on with those guys,'' Black said. "I think that Johnson could possibly be back for next week's game, but for the others, it depends on the information that we find out from their tests.''
Johnson's absence leaves a particularly glaring void for Northern Bedford. He rushed for two touchdowns in last week's game, after putting together an outstanding 2022 season in which he rushed for 1,563 yards and 28 touchdowns.
Despite Northern Bedford's injuries, first-year Claysburg-Kimmel coach Chuck Kassick expects the Black Panthers to still put up quite a formidable fight on Friday.
Northern Bedford returns four seniors - guards Josiah Bowser and Brian Amick, center Noah Baker, and tackle Brock Beach -- on its offensive line from the 2022 team that suffered its only loss last season to Windber in the District 5 Class 1A championship game.
"They are incredibly strong up front,'' Kassick said of the Black Panthers. "You could put a couple mediocre guys behind that line and that team will still be pretty darn good.
"The kids on that line are big, they're strong, and they're really physical,'' Kassick said. "That's what pops off the page to me.''
The Black Panthers, who entered this season ranked fourth among the state's Class 1A teams by PennLive.com, boast a veteran senior quarterback in Eion Snider, who completed five of seven passes for 124 yards and three touchdowns, while also running 60 yards for a touchdown, in last week's game.
Senior wideout Ben Gable caught three passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns last week for Northern Bedford, and junior wideout Aaron Bowers is a three-year veteran who caught 47 passes a year ago, including five for touchdowns.
After playing its home games at Hollidaysburg's Tiger Stadium in both of the past two seasons while its home stadium wasbeing renovated, Claysburg-Kimmel christened its brand-new digs last Friday. The final score - a 45-21 loss to highly-touted Berlin Brothersvalley - wasn't what Kassick and the Bulldogs wanted, but he still had several positive takeaways from the season-opening game.
"Our kids know that when you're trying to build something, it takes time,'' Kassick said. "There were a lot of negatives to take away from last week's game, but there were a lot of positives there, too.
"There's no quit in our guys, they just want to get back on the field, and show what they can do,'' Kassick added.
Claysburg-Kimmel and Northern Bedford have been continuous rivals in the ICC for many years, adding some shine and appeal to Friday's game.
"Claysburg has always been a scrappy football team,'' Black said. "I think that they play with a lot of effort. I know that their defensive line likes to blitz and can bring a lot of pressure, and offensively, they have some threats.''
Kassick said that his Claysburg team has to cut down on the physical and mental mistakes that it made last week.
"I'm sure that that the atmosphere for the Northern Bedford team on its home field will be pretty darn good,'' Kassick said. "So we've got to sew things up and make sure that we're crossing our 'T's' and dotting our 'I's.'''