There’s a saying in the investment world that can also apply to the District 2 football playoffs, which kick off tonight.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Take Dallas for example. The Mountaineers (10-0) are the only District 2 team to finish the season undefeated. They were also undefeated in 2010 after 10 games and then lost in the first round of the D2-3A playoffs.
A short drive through the Back Mountain leads to Dallas’ archrival Lake-Lehman. The Black Knights showed they could score points in bundles last season, reaching or topping the 40-point barrier five times in 10 regular-season games. Then came the D2-3A playoffs and Lehman managed a mere field goal.
So when Dallas hosts a three-win Abington Heights team in the D2-4A quarterfinals and Lehman (7-3) has Lakeland (5-5) pays a visit for a D2-3A quarterfinal game, nothing is guaranteed.
Other playoff games involving Wyoming Valley Conference teams at 7 p.m. today are:
• D2/4-6A: Williamsport (3-7) at Delaware Valley (9-1); Scranton (6-4) at Wilkes-Barre Area (6-4).
• D2/11-5A: Wyoming Valley West (3-7) at Southern Lehigh (9-1).
• D2-4A: Pittston Area (4-6) at Valley View (9-1); Tunkhannock (5-5) at Berwick (8-2); North Pocono (5-5) at Crestwood (6-4).
• D2-3A: Hanover Area (3-7) at Western Wayne (8-2). Wyoming Area (9-1) has a bye as does four-time defending champion Scranton Prep (8-2) out of the Lackawanna Conference.
• Also, Northwest (5-4) plays its last game as a WVC football member when it hosts Montgomery (4-6) in the Eastern Conference Class A-2A championship game. The Rangers are moving to the Northern Tier League in 2020 where they will compete against more opponents with similar enrollments.
As for Dallas, it doesn’t need to dip back to 2010 to realize how unpredictable the postseason can be.
The Mountaineers hosted another three-win team, Honesdale, in the quarterfinals last season. The Hornets, though, lost several close games, had big guys in the trenches who could match Dallas’ physicality and a power running back who could move the chains.
Dallas escaped with a 23-16 win for its 10th win in 2018.
“It was a tremendous lesson,” Dallas coach Rich Mannello said. “I mean, if we don’t get the fumble on that last drive there, you might have a different outcome in that game. And the weather is going to come into play when you get to this part of the year.
“All those things factor in and you’ve got to stay on the rails. And this group will.”
Abington Heights doesn’t bring the same makeup into the game that Honesdale did last season. The Comets won the D2-5A championship in 2016 — their ninth in the program’s history — but have backslid since then. However, they’ve won three of their last five games and the defense has played well at times although the offense has been pedestrian throughout.
Lehman will be playing Lakeland for the third time in 12 games due to a scheduling quirk. The Black Knights needed replacements for GAR and Meyers after they merged with Coughlin to form the Wilkes-Barre Area Wolfpack. A reshuffling of the schedule put Lakeland in the Week 2 slot.
The two teams also played in the D2-3A quarterfinals last season with Lakeland winning 6-3 in overtime. Lehman won 25-13 this season. This year’s version of the Chiefs is much younger.
“You really coach your kids to move on to the next game,” Lehman coach Jerry Gilsky said. “A win or loss, you move on. We work hard on that during the season. … If the kids have an exceptional game, I’m quick to move on from game film and stuff like that.”
