Are The 5-4 Aces For Real? Conestoga Will Test Them On Saturday

by Gerry October 26, 2023

For the past umpteen years, the point of the Lower Merion – Conestoga football games has been to see whether the Pioneers would slaughter the Aces, which is what usually happened, or if Lower Merion could keep it respectable and lose by no more than two touchdowns.

Last year, the Aces were better than respectable when they forced Conestoga to kick a final-seconds field goal in order for the Pioneers to escape with a 15-14 win.

Joe Augustine’s Dawgs have more ambitious goals for this Saturday’s matchup with Conestoga (1 PM at Arnold Field) than merely being competitive. Their audacity to think that they could actually beat Conestoga comes not so much from the 63-20 spanking that they administered to Harriton last week, rather than from Lower Merion’s earlier wins this season against Central League Rivals – Upper Darby, Penncrest and Haverford

For the past decade, Central League Football has been locked into three well-defined tiers.

Top Tier:

Strath Haven, Springfield (Delco), Ridley, and Garnet Valley have owned the top tier.

Middle Tier: Conestoga, Haverford, Upper Darby and Marple Newtown have occupied the middle tier.

Bottom Tier Radnor, Penncrest, Lower Merion and Harriton have competed for bragging rights among bottom tier teams, while rarely beating a middle-tier team, much less one of the four elite teams. There’s even a pecking order within the bottom tier. Radnor has been the best of the worst, followed by Penncrest, Lower Merion and Harriton.

Harriton’s out.

Harriton is in the last year of what was supposed to be a two-year hiatus from playing most of the other Central League teams in football. No announcement has been as to whether their furlough will become a permanent departure for the Rams. Harriton is still very much a part of the league for all other sports.

Comparing performances against common opponents makes Conestoga a slight favorite.

Both teams beat Haverford – Conestoga by one point, Lower Merion by two, in overtime.

Both teams lost to Srpingfield (Delco), but Conestoga lost to them by only seven points, whereas for Lower Merion, the 42-0 loss to Springfield was their worst of the season.

Both teams beat Upper Darby – Conestoga by 14 points, Lower Merion by eigh0,t in overtime.

Conestoga beat Ridley by six points while Lower Merion lost to them 29 points.

Both teams lost to Garnet Valley – Conestoga by 13 points, Lower Merion by only two points.

Conestoga lost to Penncrest by one point, while Lower Merion beat them by six.

Current Central League Standings

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