Pittston Area, Wyoming Area and Old Forge each find themselves in interesting matchups when they hit the road to help the high school football season get underway Friday night.
Joe DeLucca makes his debut as a head football coach when Pittston Area travels to Mid Valley for a meeting of two of the most experienced teams in District 2.
Strong running games are expected to clash when Wyoming Area, the defending Division 2 champion, tests itself at Crestwood, which was the third-place team in Division 1 of the Wyoming Valley Conference last season.
Old Forge will see a familiar face when it plays at Scranton Memorial Stadium against West Scranton, coached by former Blue Devil Jake Manetti.
All three games are scheduled for 7 p.m. starts.
One of DeLucca’s coaching stops was at Mid Valley where he was an assistant, along with current Spartans head coach Stan Yanoski.
“It will be a little bit of a reunion,” Yanoski said. “ … It’s going to be exciting.”
Jakob Lesher, who ran for 1,485 yards and 18 touchdowns, is one of 10 starters returning to the offense at Mid Valley, which jumped from 2-8 in 2022 to 7-4 last season.
The meeting will be the first between the two teams.
Pittston Area played in the Big 11 Conference against mostly Lackawanna County schools 1967-1969, but Mid Valley did not join the Big 11 until 1972.
Wyoming Area-Crestwood is a rematch of an intense, early-season meeting from a year ago.
The teams were tied three times before Lidge Kellum, who figures to be a more prominent part of the Warriors offense this season, turned his only carry of the night into the game-winning, 61-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter of a 29-22 victory.
West Scranton replaces one nearby small school with another after splitting exciting openers with Riverside in Manetti’s first two seasons as head coach.