Welcome to another season of high school football and our Overtime column.

Once again this season, Overtime will go in depth on a play, player, coach or team from a game held the previous week. In addition, Rod Heckman will examine statistics and go back into our archives to add some historical references to the numbers.

This week, Overtime will focus on Panther Valley’s season opener at Salisbury, which provided rookie coach Mark Lavine with his first-career victory.

In addition, Heckman will have notes on Jim Thorpe overtime games, Palmerton’s passing attack and starting the season with a field goal.

*******

Entering this season, Mark Lavine had spent 25 years coaching high school football. During that quarter of a century, Lavine had served as a varsity head coach for exactly one-half of one game.

And it didn’t go well.

“Back when I was an assistant coach at Panther Valley on Anthony Russo’s staff - I believe it was the 2003 season - we played a game against Lehighton and were winning 13-0 at halftime, but a storm hit and the game had to be continued the next day,” explained Lavine. “Coach Russo’s wife was pregnant at the time, and the next day she delivered her baby, so he wasn’t at the game.

“I served as head coach, and all I remember is that Lehighton rallied when the game was continued and they ended up beating us. So it wasn’t a very memorable half that I served as a head coach.”

Lavine was able to smile when he reflected back on that memory. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that Friday night - nearly two decades after filling in for Russo - Lavine got another opportunity to serve as Panther Valley’s head coach. But this time it wasn’t for a half, and it wasn’t on an interim basis.

This time it was a full game, and it was as the Panthers’ permanent head coach - and this time the result was totally different.

Friday night at Salisbury, Lavine and the Panthers were trailing at halftime. This time, they didn’t see a lead slip away. This time, they rallied in the second half to get a win.

“Getting a win in the opener was obviously exciting for myself and our staff.” Lavine said. “But I didn’t even think about that after the game. All I could think about was how happy I was for our players, especially the seniors.

“It had been a long time since they won a football game (Oct. 24, 2020), and it was nice to see them get a chance to celebrate and enjoy the benefits of all the work they had put in to get that win.”

Lavine said he didn’t say or do anything memorable at halftime that he felt turned the game around. His biggest takeaway from halftime was what he observed from his players.

“Panther Valley’s baseball and basketball teams have enjoyed a lot of success in recent years, and we have a number of kids on our team that were part of that,” Lavine said. “You could see it in the eyes of our older kids who were on those teams. They weren’t panicking or doubting themselves. They had a look of confidence, and a belief that they were going to find a way to win the game. I think their calmness and confidence definitely carried down to our younger kids.

“I was confident as well. I thought we had done some nice things, especially later in the first half, that we just weren’t able to take advantage of. I told the kids before we left the locker room that we were going to get a defensive stop to open the second half, that we were going to drive down the field and score on our first offensive possession, and then we were going to control the clock and game the rest of the half ... and that’s pretty much what happened.”

Among the biggest concerns for first-year head coaches in their first game are preparation and communication - and Lavine was no different.

“I was definitely anxious all week leading up to the game,” Lavine said. “You’re trying to make sure you’re prepared for everything that might come up in the game, and that you have prepared your players for those things as well. But until you play the game, you never really know.

“But overall, I think things went really smoothly ... probably better than I expected. I was happy with our pregame preparation, and also the communication between our coaches during the game.”

While the first win was nice, Lavine knows it’s a long season, and that all that matters now is the next game.

“Not a lot of people are picking us to have a big season, and not a lot of people picked us to beat Salisbury,” Lavine said. “But I told the kids that’s understandable. We didn’t win a game last season so we need to earn respect - nobody is just going to give it to us.

“We have to do that by working hard every day at practice, and then taking advantage of the 10 opportunities we have during the regular season to prove that we are a good team and that we deserve respect. The Salisbury game was a start. We get a chance to build on that this Friday night against Tri-Valley.”

*******

OLYMPIAN OVERTIME ... Jim Thorpe opened its season last Friday with a heart-breaking overtime loss to Blue Mountain.

It marked the first time in almost 10 years that the Olympians have needed to play past regulation to reach a decision. Their last OT contest came on Sept. 21, 2012 when they dropped a 49-48 score to Panther Valley. Thorpe had played 104 straight games without needing overtime.

Since the inception of OT in the PIAA, the Olympians have only won one game (an 18-12 victory over Mahanoy Area on Oct. 15, 2010) that went past regulation. That ties them with Palmerton for the fewest among area teams.

**********

PANTHER WORKHORSE ... Panther Valley’s Michael Pascoe not only led his team to a 20-13 victory over Salisbury last Friday, but he helped the Panthers snap a 10-game losing streak.

Pascoe ran for 203 yards and three touchdowns on 38 carries. In the last 30 years, no PV player has run the ball that many times in a game. Over that time frame, the most attempts was 35 - accomplished three times by two different players. Chas Field had 35 carries twice (Oct. 10, 2005 and Nov. 5, 2004), while Brian DeGiosio had the same amount on Nov. 20, 1998.

**********

SPEAKING OF PV ... Not only did Panther Valley snap a losing streak, but it rallied from a halftime deficit to gain its victory.

The Panthers trailed Salisbury by a 13-7 score at the break, but used two Pascoe touchdown runs to get in the win column.

Before last Friday, PV had been 1-59 in the last 60 games it trailed after two quarters. The only other victory also came in a season opener - Aug. 24, 2018 - when the Panthers trailed CMVT 8-6 at halftime but ended up posting a 28-22 win.

**********

BOMBER CONNECTION ... Palmerton’s Matt Machalik and Kendall Robinson both accomplished rare feats in last Friday’s victory over Lehighton.

Machalik threw for four touchdowns in the 42-29 victory. Over the past 25 years, only two other Blue Bomber quarterbacks have done that. Garrett Perschy did it twice (Sept. 17, 2016 and Sept. 26, 2014), while Matt Falcone also did it on Nov. 8, 2008.

Three of Machalik’s scoring tosses went to Robinson, who finished the contest with five catches for 99 yards. Only one other Palmerton player has caught three TD passes in a game over the past 25 seasons. That was Mike Statsko, who caught three of Perschy’s four scores in that Sept. 17, 2016 game.

**********

TWENTY-SOMETHING POINTS ... In Friday’s season-opening week, both Panther Valley (20) and Marian (21) barely hit the 20-point mark in its victories.

That figure is significant, though, because it meant that every Times News area football team scored at least 20 points in the same week.

The last time all nine area clubs hit the 20-point mark in the same week was Sept. 19, 2014 - the fourth week of the regular season. Jim Thorpe and Northern Lehigh managed exactly 20 points then, while Palmerton and Lehighton finished with 21.

**********

GETTING A LEG UP ... Lehighton’s AJ Light kicked a 29-yard field goal last Friday to get the Indians on the scoreboard for the first time this season.

The three-pointer ended a stretch of 44 straight games for Lehighton without a field goal (its last came Oct. 27, 2017 when Nate Petit-Clair booted a 28-yarder). The kick also marked the first time since 2017 that an area team opened its season scoring with a field goal. In that year, Pleasant Valley’s Doug Cummings nailed a 31-yarder to give the Bears their first points.

The last time Lehighton had a three-pointer to open its season scoring was 2012. Jacen Nalesnik did the honors with a 37-yard field goal in the opening quarter.

**********

200-YARD PASSERS ... In Friday’s game between Palmerton and Lehighton, both quarterbacks passed for over 200 yards. The Bombers’ Matt Machalik threw for 237 yards, while the Indians totaled 247 yards on his completions.

Over the past 35 years, this was the 20th time that a game involving a Times News area team had two QBs reach 200 yards passing. However, this was only the fourth time that both quarterbacks were from area teams.

The other three times that happened were: Nov. 2, 2007 with Jim Thorpe’s Corey Cinicola (240) and Brandon Williams (215), Oct. 20, 2007 with Panther Valley’s Casey Lawrence (232) and Tamaqua’s Ryan Palsgrove (213) and Nov. 14, 1992 with Panther Valley’s Cazzie Kosciolek (307) and Jim Thorpe’s Eric Schrantz (284).