Crimson Tide, Battlin’ Miners gearing up for season

Pottsville's football team huddles up before their scrimmage on Friday, Aug. 17, 2024.

POTTSVILLE — Pottsville and Minersville each hosted a scrimmage locally as high school football season creeps closer to beginning.

The Crimson Tide, led in his first season at the helm by coach Mike Brennan, hosted the Red Tornadoes of Mount Carmel at Steidle Field (Baseball) in Pottsville. The most interesting storylines included what would Pottsville’s offense looks like and who would be taking the snaps in that offense.

While scoring is not necessarily kept for a scrimmage, it was certainly interesting to note the Crimson Tide and Red Tornadoes each scored three times during the down-and-distance session.

Both Andrew Allen and Brody Herndon saw reps at quarterback for Pottsville, while Herndon also saw a ton of snaps at tailback.

During the final offensive sessions both teams chose to use overtime rules in which you get four attempts to score from the 10-yard line. The Crimson Tide found the end zone for the fourth time of the morning, while Mount Carmel couldn’t punch the ball in the end zone in its four downs.

Here’s a quick peek at today’s scrimmage followed by an interview with Leroy Boyer and Coach Brennan below. Take notice to the Oakland Raiders Colosseum type setup at Pottsville.

In Minersville, coach Justin Frantz and the Battlin’ Miners played host to Northern Lebanon as Minersville begins to reload and prepare for a new season moving up to District 11 Class AA following their Class A championship a season ago.

The Vikings rolled out their academy-like triple option offense that forced the Battlin’ Miners defense to fly to the football and communicate in order to prevent chunk plays. On the opposite side of the ball, quarterback Dante Carr worked the ball around to his primary target Logan Hutsko, while Easton Schultz, Logan Rizzardi, Robert Bruce, Gavin Allan and Garrett Sukeena aided Carr in the run game.

Minersville utilized its scrimmage to see what new faces will contribute to their Week 1 effort against Halifax. Coach Frantz will spend game week cleaning up some mistakes and working on consistency as he prepares the Battlin’ Miners for the season.

Check out some clips from today’s scrimmage below followed by a quick interview with Coach Frantz.

Coach Frantz doesn’t want to focus too much on the move up to Class AA, but rather continue to make sure Minersville is putting in the effort to get better, improve and clean up any mistakes as they prepare to take on Halifax to start the season at 7 p.m on Friday, Aug. 23, at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Minersville.