Mapletown and Avella are no stranger to each other on the football field, as they are two of very few teams to face off in non-conference, as well as conference play. 

“Avella and Mapletown are clones of each other. We are the two smallest public schools in the WPIAL to have football teams,” said George Messich, Mapletown head coach. “Jokingly, we both say if we played 10 times a year, we would both be 5-5, and everyone would be happy.”            

Mapletown comes into Friday night with a record of (1-5) overall, and (0-3) in the Tri-County South. However, for the Maples, they do own a win this season against Avella, which came out  20-6 in week zero.

“Going into Friday night, we need to make no mistakes. We can’t give up long passes or runs for touchdowns,”  Messich said. “We also need to tackle better, we need to play smart.”

Along with a win in week zero, Mapletown comes into this game winning six of the last seven matchups against the Eagles. However, one of the key leaders in Brock Evans is out, which callS for other players to step up.

“Knowing this is a team we’ve beaten before and being a key player to watch out for their game plan motivates me,” said Carson Vanata, Mapletown running back. “All this helps me motivate the team, no matter our current record.”

The Maples come into Friday losing their last game 58-0 against California, which set them on a five-game losing streak.

“California is a very good football team,” Messich said. “They’re fast and very aggressive. We were in a good position on defense, but needed to tackle and fly to the ball better. We felt we had some good plays against them, but we needed to be more consistent.”

Avella currently sits with an overall record of (2-4), and a conference record of (1-2). This puts the Eagles in a two-way tie for fifth place with Carmicahels. 

“We struggled to start the season,” said Ryan Cecchini, Avella head coach. “We had a lot of new kids, and it took longer for things to mesh, but it’s starting to come together.”

As mentioned, Avella has been on the losing end in six of the last seven matchups, but they look to turn things around Friday night after the aforementioned 20-6 loss earlier in the season.

“We started off bad in that game, we had some bad plays and by the time we started to look good, it was too late,” Cecchini said.

Although the history doesn’t look good against Mapletown, Avella is coming off a 22-16 victory over Beth Center. 

The Eagles had pulled to a 16 point lead before Beth-Center tied it up in the second half. However, for Avella, Chas Rush was able to score the game winning touchdown on a 38-yard run with 10:44 remaining in the fourth.

“We started off well,” Cecchini said. “Then out of the half, it was just our own undoing with penalties. However, we didn’t fold and were able to hold them twice and come up on top.”

The game will take place Friday Sept. 4, at Mapletown, with kickoff set for 7 p.m.