Yet even with the wins being in relatively short supply down the final furlong of last year, Northern Lebanon was able to receive the football version of a blood transfusion when the Vikings’ overall body of work was deemed good enough for them to receive a precious bid into the District 3 tournament last season. After coming off the gates with a head-turning 3-1 overall mark throughout the first four weeks of the year in ‘21, the Vikes did admittedly struggle down the stretch given their subsequent 1-5 record to close the campaign. In terms of starting off your tenure strong, place a giant check mark next to Jason Rice’s name as he and his squad embarked on their initial 2021 campaign with one another just one year ago. You see, this is still the beginning of a relatively new era for Vikings’ football up in Fredericksburg. On the opposing sideline, while Northern Lebanon’s postseason dreams and aspirations have gone by the wayside these last couple of weeks for certain, that’s not too in any way suggest that the Vikings were simply “playing out the string” the rest of the way if you will. And through it all, as they prepared to dive head-first into its ninth assignment of the year against Northern Lebanon, the Hawks found themselves squarely on the bubble of their District 3-3A playoff chase with a 6-2 mark as they entered the evening while owning the fifth seed in the six-team bracket that will begin in earnest just 14 days from now. In that game, while Hamburg continued with its torrid offensive output is given their 35 points scored that evening in the Red Rose city, the Hawks simply ran out of time when it came to having a closing rebuttal to the Crusaders’ test once the final gun sounded as the hosts were able to send their guests back to the northern corner of Berks County with a 38-35 defeat that late September night.īut even following that ballyhooed section defeat, Hamburg continued to light up scoreboards in its next two contests which was best evidenced in combined 61-point outings while coming out of said affairs with a 1-1 clip that came in respective defeats of Pequea Valley when coupled with another hard-fought defeat last time out against Schuylkill Valley to the tune of 41-34 final verdict just one week ago. Case in point, the much-anticipated contest in Week 6 this season when Hamburg rolled into Lancaster city to tangle with Lancaster Catholic. Of course, when you have such a sensational start, you then in turn create big games for yourself as a result. Hard to argue too when you consider that not only had Hamburg been able to amass a 5-0 record immediately out of the chute to begin its 2022 campaign, but it had also done so while scoring at an absolutely silly 52 points-per-game clip in the process.
Throughout the first half of the year, it could not only be argued but easily argued in fact, that no scholastic team found inside the entire state of Pennsylvania had been playing a better brand of football than that of the red and white hailing from the intersection of Interstate of 78 and Route 61. And jeez, has anyone else epitomized that better than the Hamburg Hawks this season? This season, when the L-L League expanded into the 37-team behemoth that it is today, there figured to be programs that would certainly make a grand ol’ entrance when it came to making a name for themselves and carving out a new identity for their overall brand given the abrupt change in surroundings.
Just take this week’s Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Five tussle between Hamburg and Northern Lebanon as example 1A. Granted, while the head-to-head brawls between two teams fighting it out for divisional title supremacy when coupled alongside those contests which feature two clubs fighting tooth and nail to snatch berths into the postseason typically steal the show –and rightfully so in many respects – that not to intimate in the slightest that the so-called “other” games between combatants are not deserving of the same limelight and attention. When you get to the ninth week of the year come to the marathon - yet somehow also a sprint oddly enough - that is the high school football season, there are almost always storylines aplenty to go around on the slate, regardless of what the matchup between the two opposing sides may be.
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