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Cambria Heights and Purchase Line opened the season against each other, and one of them will end the other's season Friday at Mansion Park while the other celebrates the District 6 Class 1A championship.
For the Highlanders, a win would make history. Cambria Heights has never won a District 6 championship in high school football.
"For the kids and the community both (this playoff run) has been fantastic," Cambria Heights coach Jarrod Lewis said. "We have gotten a lot of support from our community. We're hoping both the community and the students come out in great numbers. We were there in 2020, but unfortunately, that team got robbed a little bit of the experience, because that was the pandemic year. You were limited with the number of fans and number of people who can come to the games. It was really just close family members.
"To have this opportunity is obviously special. To get to this point is special, and if we could bring home the program's first district championship, it would be something that would allow this team to leave a mark in this program's history. We have also never won 10 games, which would be a feather in the cap of this group."
When Cambria Heights reached the championship game in 2020, the Highlanders were still in 2A and fell to Richland, which was in the middle of four straight district title seasons. Heights went undefeated in the regular season in 2021 and won the Heritage Conference but lost the Appalachian Bowl and was eliminated in the first round of the postseason.
A year ago, Cambria Heights fell in the semifinals to eventual champion Northern Cambria, but the Highlanders returned the favor and knocked the Colts out in this year's playoffs.
"We're a completely different team," Lewis said. "We're a young team. We have three seniors that start for us. We had a lot of guys who had some experience, but they were role players. I have watched those guys grow into feature players and take a step of maturation. Each week, we have gotten better, which was our goal. It's a credit to those players and them wanting to get better. They are very unselfish."
Purchase Line, which won that season-opening game 19-7, is also a much different team than it was at the start of the year. It was picked to finish seventh in the Heritage Conference but exceeded outside expectations.
"Going in, I think we knew we had a pretty good group of kids," Purchase Line coach Matt Falisec said. "Whenever they were ranked, I think the kids were pretty ticked off about it. But that's just what the coaches were picking, and last year we only won four games. We have a good group of older kids that played and most of them started in ninth or 10th grade. That Cambria Heights game was huge for us and gave us a lot of momentum."
Unfortunately, the Red Dragons hit a mid-season slump after some key injuries after they led the District 6 1A rankings for most of the first half of the year.
"I think they are resilient group that just kept working," Falisec said. "We had two guys get injured that were both two-way starters. Our receiver A.J. Chambers, who got injured, is irreplaceable out there, because he's a super fast kid with great ball skills and one of the best athletes in the conference. That really hurt us. He got hurt Week 4, and we had a linebacker that went down who was probably one of the hardest hitters on our team (Charles Edwards) that was leading the conference in tackles. After that, we weren't playing our best ball, but after winning our last two playoff games, the kids have a ton of momentum."
Chambers had 13 catches in those four games and averaged 17.8 yards per catch, and Edwards had 79 tackles in just seven games.
"Because of the fact we played them so many games ago, I'm not sure how much carries over," Lewis said. "Just watching them, they are a much different football team. It looks like they are more in sync. They have a lot of experience (quarterback John) Elick has a lot of experience. It seems like he's been there for nine years, but he's been a four-year starter there and a lot of their guys have three or four years of experience. You can tell they are a team that feeds off each other and knows what each other are doing. They are a very physical football team."
Elick is 80-for-151 and has thrown for 1,233 yards, 13 touchdowns and six interceptions, and the team has gotten balance with senior running back Brock Small and his 188 carries for 1,332 yards and 16 touchdowns.
"We have to stay away from penalties," Falisec said. "We lost to Penns Manor a couple weeks ago, and we had a lot of penalties and a turnover they returned for a touchdown. I think our offense needs to be consistent on moving the ball. The Cambria Heights style of offense is that it might take them eight minutes to drive the ball down the field, so our offense needs to stay on the field and keep moving the ball on them."
The Red Dragons have just one District 6 title, in 2A in 1990, but know they will have to win the physical battle up front to win one this year.
"They are a big, strong and physical team," Falisec said. "They are a younger team with a lot of juniors, but up front they are solid. I remember after we played them the first week, I told our kids that might be one of the best front fours we played all year. Watching them play Northern Cambria and West Branch, their line has really solidified. They have a lot of skill kids and some team speed. It's definitely going to be a challenge, and we have to be ready for it."