After a difficult Week 2 in the Bob Ford Memorial Grid Picks race, the results from Week 3 were much better overall.

Eight of us won 11 games or more. Brad Hurley jumped into first place past TJ Engle, who dropped into a four-way fourth-place tie. Hurley’s lead is a single game over defending champion Rod Heckman. Two back is Pat Matsinko, who rallied from last week’s 8-7 record to a 12-3 mark this week.

Yours Truly had the week best 13-2 mark, tying me in fourth with Justin Carlucci, Mike Haines and Engle. Despite having excellent 12-3 records, Jeff Moeller and Sam Matta remain near the bottom of the standings and Emmett McCall, who had a solid 11-4 week, sits in an all too familiar place, the dreaded Pundit Pit.

Tribe, Tigers, Bombers roll on

After the first three weeks of the season, six area teams have winning records. Lehighton, Northwestern and Palmerton all remain undefeated. The Tigers play the Tribe on October 9th in Lehighton. Other Times News area teams currently with winning records are Tamaqua, Northern Lehigh, and Pleasant Valley.

Out of Area Game of the Week

This week’s choice is the battle between the Tri-Valley Bulldogs and the Shenandoah Valley Blue Devils. The undefeated 3-0 Devils are an incredible story. The program had not won a single game since September of 2023 and since then were winless in the last two season, running a 26-game losing streak that ended this season.

This new Blue Devils’ group has outscored their first three opponents, 143-25. Junior quarterback Ethan Bench has already thrown for nine touchdowns this season after tossing 10 in a winless 10-game campaign a year ago. Junior wideout Gene Sinkus has caught four of Bench’s TD tosses, while senior running back Mike Elchisak has carried the rock for nearly 10 yards a pop.

Tri-Valley maintains a perennial good football program. This season, junior running back Parker Hatter has added 398 rushing yards and four touchdowns to his career numbers of 1,811 on the ground and 19 TDs. He’s also a receiving threat coming out of the backfield. Due to quarterback injuries last season, Trey Porter moved from wideout to QB and finished the year with 1,281 passing and rushing yards combined along with 13 touchdowns. He also had two scoring punt returns, and five defensive interceptions with two taken to the house.

I’m going with the Bulldogs here to give the Blue Devils their first loss with Porter making the difference scoring a late-game TD.

Records and rebounds

Now that the football season is three weeks old, the trick to making winning picks relies on a recipe of research sprinkled with gut feelings. Of course, like any gamble, luck also factors into the weekly standings.

All 10 pickers believe Lehighton will beat Saucon Valley and move to 4-0, a feat the Tribe has not achieved since 2017. Marian is a unanimous pick to even its record with a win over Minersville. Panther Valley, which is striving for the school’s first winning record since 2009, is our pick to beat Nanticoke and go to 2-2. If Northwestern beats Salisbury, it will mark the 36th consecutive regular season victory for the Tigers. Northern Lehigh has rebounded nicely after a big loss to the Tigers, and is expected to improve to 3-1 with a win over winless Palisades. Speaking of rebounding, a Palmerton victory over Catasauqua would keep the Bombers undefeated following two straight losing seasons.

The consensus is Jim Thorpe will even its record by beating Bangor, and out-of-area unanimous and majority picks say North Pocono and Shamokin will both move to 4-0 going into next week; furthermore, Blue Mountain and Whitehall are also everyone’s choices, and will have no effect on the standings.

Four will tell the score

Four games on this week’s ledger will impact the standings. Executive Education plays Tamaqua, with seven pickers liking the Raiders to win. Matsinko takes another bold move against Hurley and Heckman, who have tabbed the Allentown charter school. He’s checked Bangor over Jim Thorpe, and Delaware Valley to beat Scranton Prep to sink or swim against the leaders. Heckman disagrees with Hurley on two games: Nazareth over Freedom, and Twin Valley to knock off Shenandoah Valley.

The top three could juggle the leaderboard and the logjam in fourth place should break free. From the back of the pack, the triple M boys: Moeller, Matta and McCall can’t afford to fall any further off the lead.

We’ll see who’s still alive in the race going into Week 5!